Ethereum Jumps, But the Real Winners Are Optimism, Arbitrum, and Polygon

Ethereum is up significantly today, but the tokens behind projects that make the ecosystem faster and cheaper to use are doing even better.
Of the top 20 biggest digital coins and tokens, Ethereum (ETH) is doing well—it's up over 6.5% in 24 hours to a current price of $2,351, according to CoinGecko.
But that's nothing compared to the projects aimed at scaling the network.
Optimism (OP), the token behind the protocol which "rolls up" ETH transactions to speed up the major blockchain, is up 30% in the past day. It's currently trading hands for $4.1
And Arbitrum (ARB), which also cuts Ethereum costs and fees, is up by over 16% in 24 hours, coming in priced at
$1.50.
Meanwhile MATIC, the 13th biggest digital currency by market cap which runs on Polygon, is up 12% over the day. Its price currently stands at little over a dollar at $1.05.

Ethereum scalers speed things up on the notoriously expensive and costly blockchain by settling them on a layer-2 network or sidechain before reporting back to Ethereum. The idea is that developers can build things with ease until Ethereum's congestion issues are potentially sorted through future upgrades.

Such projects have received renewed interest this year as those wanting to speed up Ethereum have worked hard on building solutions to its slow network.