Etherlink, the Tezos-powered, EVM-compatible Layer 2 scaling solution, is seeing a wave of adoption and DeFi momentum just weeks after exiting beta and completing its major Calypso upgrade in March. With over $18 million in total value locked (TVL)—a 12x jump from early February—Etherlink’s ecosystem is rapidly maturing. The growth is fueled by a highly successful rewards initiative and growing developer activity.
At the heart of the network’s acceleration is Apple Farm, a $3 million liquidity mining program that has exceeded initial expectations by attracting a swarm of users and liquidity providers. The incentives have catalyzed trading volume and liquidity across Etherlink-native dApps, especially on decentralized exchange IguanaDEX, which has processed over $150 million in trading volume in just a few weeks. Market participants are flocking to the platform to capitalize on Apple Farm rewards and arbitrage opportunities, contributing to its dynamic on-chain activity.
“The success of Apple Farm demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach to incentive programs and the development of this ecosystem,” said David Relkin, Head of DeFi for the Tezos ecosystem at Nomadic Labs. “We’re building a sustainable environment where users find genuine value in meaningful on-chain interactions.”
Alongside DEX growth, Superlend, a core money market protocol on Etherlink, has emerged as a foundational element of the network’s DeFi stack. As of mid-April, Superlend reports $16.93 million in deposits and $10.49 million in active borrowing—figures that place it among the most successful early-stage lending protocols on an L2 in 2025. Notably, this traction comes at a time when many other Layer 2s are struggling to maintain post-airdrop user engagement.
Another standout is Uranium.io, the world’s first decentralized marketplace for physical uranium trading, which has recorded $6.46 million in TVL. It reflects Etherlink’s ambition to go beyond conventional DeFi use cases and experiment with tokenized real-world assets. On the retail side, Hanji, a community-driven vault platform, hit its $200,000 cap in under 24 hours after launch on March 26 and has since raised the limit to $1 million to accommodate user demand.
A recent Messari report corroborates Etherlink’s breakout trajectory, pointing to sustained growth in wallet addresses and transactions. Over 50 projects are currently building on the chain, underscoring rising developer confidence in the network’s long-term viability.
Calypso Upgrade: A Performance Leap
Underpinning this growth is Calypso, Etherlink’s March network upgrade designed to enhance scalability and performance. The update delivers up to 30x faster smart contract storage and significantly reduces the disk load on operator nodes. These improvements are key to handling the spike in transaction throughput without sacrificing stability or decentralization.
Additionally, Calypso improves surge protection and prepares the network for faster tez bridging between Etherlink and the Tezos L1, potentially unlocking further DeFi use cases and cross-chain liquidity.
Fortify Labs Fuels Developer Momentum
Looking ahead, Etherlink is laying the groundwork for sustained innovation through the Fortify Labs program, now in its second cohort. Backed by TZ APAC, the initiative has attracted seven new projects building exclusively on Etherlink, including:
- BluWhale AI: a decentralized analytics platform for data modeling and ML applications;
- IDRX: a stablecoin pegged to the Indonesian Rupiah;
- Miomi Game: an eSports gaming protocol exploring on-chain tournament dynamics.
This wave of early-stage innovation mirrors a broader shift in the L2 landscape, where builders are increasingly seeking networks with deep infrastructure, cross-chain compatibility, and long-term support.
Etherlink’s rise comes at a time when Layer 2 competition is heating up, with Base, zkSync, and Linea aggressively expanding their ecosystems. However, Etherlink distinguishes itself through its Tezos-native rollup architecture, which combines Ethereum tooling with Tezos’ finality and security guarantees—positioning it as a hybrid model for multichain scalability.