Dashboard Objectives

On this dashboard, we study the contribution of the Sushiswap decentralized exchange (DEX) in the growth of the Optimism user base. A DEX is a platform that allows for the permissionless exchange of assets by means of liquidity pools (LP), using automated market makers (AMMs) to dictate prices. We have chosen to shed light into this question by looking at metrics that fall in the following categories:

• Swap-count and user data of Sushiswap transactions and users relative to other DEXs used in Optimism (Uniswap, 1inch, 0x, Slingshot, and Clipper). This will help us determine Sushiswap’s usage relative to its competition in the Optimism network.
• Network adoption data. We first show the number of users that have interacted with Sushiswap in any of their first two transactions in Optimism and compare those to all other platforms in Optimism. Additionally, we show the preferred destinations for users transacting for the first/second time in Optimism, as well as the adoption of Sushiswap compared to other decentralized exchanges.

The information shown in the visualizations below includes transactions of the last 3 months. Furthermore, we have added some comments referencing the data in the charts at the time of writing, i.e., October 26th, 2022.

Main Takeaways

• We have shown that Sushiswap has a very small share of the swap market compared to other decentralized exchanges. Our DEX list is not exhaustive, so the share shown for Sushiswap is an upper bound to the platform’s share in the whole swap market.
• Given this information, it is not a surprise that fewer than 0.2% of the users have used Sushiswap in their first transactions in the Optimism network. 10 to 20% of the users swap assets in their first transactions, which suggests that Sushiswap is not the platform of choice for this purpose.

• The number of swaps related to Sushiswap have doubled at the end of October compared to the beginning of August. Still, Sushiswap swaps make on average 1 to 3% of the swaps in Optimism, and 4 to 5% on the days with the most activity. Of the 1.5M swaps that were made in Optimism in the past 3 months, only 25K belonged to Sushsiswap.
• For the Sushiswap userbase we see a similar trend. Sushiswap’s userbased has not increased significantly relative to that of other decentralized exchanges. All other DEXs in Optimism seem to have grown in users at a much higher rate than those in Sushiswap.
• Not only are there fewer swaps being performed on Sushsap by fewer users; on average, Sushiswap users swap fewer times than swapers that use other exchanges.

• Almost 700 users have been onboarded to Optimism by the Swishiswap platform, i.e., Sushiswap is either the first or second platform users have interacted with in Optimism.
• The number of daily new users in Optimism has decreased since the end of July, and on average fewer than 0.2% are using Sushiswap in either of their first two transactions.
• In the past 90 days, the first things users did in Optimism where to purchase an Optimistic Explorer NFT, transfer USDC or OP tokens, swap in the Uniswap DEX, or send tokens to another network through the RabbitHole bridge.
• The DEXs we chose make 10 to 20% of the Optimism users’ first destinations, the most popular being Uniswap and 1inch.

Conclusion

• We have shown that Sushiswap has a very small share of the swap market compared to other decentralized exchanges. Our DEX list is not exhaustive, so the share shown for Sushiswap is an upper bound to the platform’s share in the whole swap market.
• Given this information, it is not a surprise that fewer than 0.2% of the users have used Sushiswap in their first transactions in the Optimism network. 10 to 20% of the users swap assets in their first transactions, which suggests that Sushiswap is not the platform of choice for this purpose.

Contact Data

Thank you for reading!

For any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me on Discord at CarlOwOs#4288 or Twitter at @CarlOwOs1

October 26th, 2022

1. Swap-count and User Data

2. Network Adoption Data