📜 Introduction

Optimism is a layer 2 chain, meaning it functions on top of Ethereum mainnet (layer 1). Transactions take place on Optimism, but the data about transactions get posted to mainnet where they are validated. It’s like driving in a less crowded side street while benefiting from the security of a highway.

Optimism is the second-largest Ethereum layer 2 with a total of $313 million locked into its smart contracts, as of this writing, according to Defi Llama. Arbitrum comes first with $1.32 billion.

In this dashboard we are going to take a look into the common actions and platforms that users are using in Optimism ecosystem using their $OP tokens. \n

Usage Over Time

In this section, in order not to cause cluttering, we will review the weekly top protocols based on their total number of transactions.

Due to airdrop, Optimism has a large share in transaction count in the June 1’s week.

On the airdrop week, Uniswap also has high number of transactions, probably users swapping their airdropped tokens.

• Optimism Itself accounts for more than 20% of weekly transactions.
• Velodrome seems to be top protocol, when excluding Optimism, it accounts for 40% of the transactions.
• By the end of September Rubicon has gained more user traction, and kept it stable afterwards.
• Between Oct 10 and 24, Nested, a DEFI protocol gained momentum and declined afterward.
• The share of Optimism protocol (not the entire blockchain) decreases over time.
• Sligshot, a DEX that has no token yet, been very active in the past, yet has lost traction in the past weeks.

Protocols Type Distribution

The donut chart illustrates the share of each protocol type in user activity when using their $OP token.

It can be seen that:

• more than half of user transactions are related to DEX activities such as swapping.
• 27% of user transactions are related to L2 activities such as bridging, bulk of these transactions happened during token launch on first week of June.
• a very small portion, about 3.7% of user transactions are related to NFTs.

Growth in DEFI and DEX protocols and decline in Operator and Bridge protocols can mean that users keeping their found on Optimism and trusting its infrastructures.

Protocols Types

The next chart depicts the weekly number of transactions, it can be seen that on the week after May 30th ($OP airdrop happened here), massive amount of transaction been reported.

Protocols Type Distribution Over Time

The last chart depicts the weekly share of each protocol type. It can be seen that:

• For the first 5 weeks there are small activates, mostly around Layer2 actions.

• On airdrop week (June 1st) Optimism Operators gained significant attraction, and DEX activities started getting momentum.

• Over time L2 activities (such as bridging) decreased and DEX and DEFI activities share increased.

• In the last week, DEX share in transactions have increased significantly.

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📊 Protocols

The chart below simply shows the category into which each protocol falls.

📈 Protocols Types

🤔 Approach

Data Source and Tables

To conduct our study, we are using blockchain data provided by Flipside Crypto. From their datasets, following tables are used:

• optimism.core.fact_nft_sales

• optimism.core.dim_labels

• optimism.core.fact_event_logs

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Methodology

We are using dim_lables table to label different protocols that are used by users. We are also categorizing user actions based on their event names, for example if a transaction’s event has Delegate in it, its categorized in Delegation category.

Study Period

We are using all the data available since the end of April 2022.

Actions over time

As already mentioned, these actions are extracted by looking into the event names of each transaction.

If we exclude uncategorized actions (others), it can be seen that most actions are related to swapping.

Delegation started on June 1st, as OP token been available.

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🔎  Summary

• Almost half of user transactions are related to DEX activities.

• Growth in DEFI and DEX protocols and decline in Operator and Bridge protocols can mean that users keeping their found on Optimism and trusting its infrastructures.

• In the last week, DEFI share in transactions have increased significantly, this is mostly caused by Nested.

• On the airdrop week Uniswap has high number of transactions, probably users swapping their airdropped tokens.

• 45% of the users have done only one transactions, and almost 85% of them have done less than 5 transactions.

• User with single transactions have mostly used Operator or L2 protocol types, which means they have either bridged their asset or claimed some airdrop.

• Users with 5 transactions or less, they mostly user L2 and DEX protocols.

• All Nested users have done more than 1 transaction. All Binance protocol users have done more than 500 transactions, these users are probably other contracts or bots .

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⚙️ Actions

The following charts depicts the share of actions done in Optimism blockchain.

👥 User Distribution

User Distribution based on Transaction Count

The following chart depicts the number of users and their ratio based on the number of transaction that they have done.

45% of the users have done only one transactions, and almost 85% of them have done less than 5 transactions.

Relation Between Protocol Type and User Distribution Based on TX Count

Simply put, this graph shows what types of protocols users used the most in each category in terms of the number of transactions.

User with single transactions have mostly used Operator or L2 protocol types, which means they have either bridged their asset or claimed some airdrop.

Users with 5 transactions or less, they mostly user L2 and DEX protocols.

Relation Between Protocol and User Distribution Based on TX Count

Simply put, this graph shows what protocols users used the most in terms of the number of transactions. to cause no cluttering we are only examining the top protocols.

• As we guessed earlier, users with a single transaction
  • Have used Optimism, which means an airdrop claim or delegation action.
  • They also used Uniswap and Rubicon.
  • They have never touched DEFI platforms such as AAVE.
• User with less than 5 transactions, other than Optimism, they mostly used Uniswap.
• All Nested users have done more than 1 transaction.
• All Binance protocol users have done more than 500 transactions, these users are probably other contracts or bots .