How Optimistic should users be about Optimism?

In the next report, the main selling points in a Layer 2 will be touched, those being:

• Time between approved blocks.
• Success/Fail rate per transaction.
• Daily Active Users.
• Average Gas cost.

Method

• The timeframe chose for this report is from the beginning of 2022. Considering that in parallel these chains should have gone through all relevant moments during this crypto season. (Excepting Arbitrum for which its data status remains in Lite Mode (🌱). With an exception while comparing fees, to give a closer time frame to compare with.

• The metrics chose are in direct relation with the mains concern around Ethereum’s usage for new and old users.

• The database used are directly from Flipside’s data repository.

  • The main transactional data came from the next tables:

    • ethereum.core.fact_transactions

    • gnosis.core.fact_transactions

    • optimism.core.fact_transactions

    • arbitrum.core.fact_transactions

    • polygon.core.fact_transactions

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  • The block approval time data came from:
    • ethereum.core.fact_blocks
    • gnosis.core.fact_blocks
    • optimism.core.fact_blocks
    • arbitrum.core.fact_blocks
    • polygon.core.fact_blocks

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  • The data for the fees (gas) cost came from:
    • ethereum.core.fact_hourly_token_prices
      • For Ethereum and xDAI its derivatives were used, WETH and DAI.

What are Layer 2s

Essentially they are the answer to Ethereum’s high costing usage fees (gas) and slow transactions per second.

This through what is practically packing a bunch of transactions into one lot and then processing them all.

A quick image would be seeing Ethereum as one big congested highway, and Layer 2s or sidechains as alternative roads, helping to alleviate the traffic on the main road.

Observations

• When it comes to transactions per day, Optimism is not the most travelled road. Actually, it has less traffic than Polygon (by a lot) and Arbitrum

• In fact, it would need ten times the traffic to catch up with Polygon usage.

• When it comes to Success/Fail ratio, well, is not the worst. Is far from Arbitrum or Ethereum success rate, but its better than Polygon and Gnosis rates.

• And in waiting times for blocks to be processed, with less than a minute, is the second best performing L2 in this report.

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• So, while is not the most transited one, it certainly has shining qualities on its side. The promise of a faster road than the Main one, holds up.

Observations

• Its low usage numbers in the previous section are explained by its small amount of users.

• While is not negligible, it has the lowest amount of addresses executing transactions.

• This could be explained on the “freshness” of the network. Given that Polygon and Gnosis have been around for a few months, even years before Optimism.

• But, Arbitrum, in its Lite status, already has more users than Optimism.

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• Its growth rate, while not stagnant, don’t really compare with the others sidechains.

New users and addresses

Daily Active Users

Observations

• Regarding to active users, Optimism is far from last.

• But only because Gnosis really have few people transacting on it.

• In numbers its closer competition comes from Arbitrum.

• But Optimism numbers remains, signalling that the usage inside of it could be solidified into its ecosystem.

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• Though it looks that a huge lot of people prefers Polygon for their Sidechain needs.

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Average Gas Per Transaction

Bonus perspective

Keep in mind

It would be easy to dismiss the grow of each Layer 2 if we only look at this year data.

While this allows us to have a more recent perspective, is necessary, as we say in the charting world, to zoom out.

And its possible to see that growth is present in all the ecosystem surrounding Ethereum. At least when it comes to the activity inside of it.

But, in presence of the data:

Optimism is not the cheapest Layer 2, nor the fastest one. Or even one of the most used ones.

And, while we could think that its not really a fair comparison during a full bear market, the other chains have gone through almost the same conditions.

And we also have to remember its somewhat failed airdrop.

I would say that users should be on the fence around Optimism. Not overly invest on it, but also not ditching it out.

It seems that it would be best to be Realistic

Observations

Being one of the main selling points in the whole concept of a Layer 2, Optimism does:

• Performs better than Ethereum. Being cheaper of course. While a transaction it average could cost 2.6 USD, in Optimism it would cost 0.12 USDs. Faster and cheaper.

• But, it pales when compared to the other layer 2s.

• Given that they not only cost less to transit on them, they also have a bigger user base, and higher transactional activity.

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• Overall, not great, not terrible