In this dashboard I show daily bridge transfers of ETH and USDC from Mainnet to Optimism. The period of observation is the last 30 days and only transfers from the Native Optimism Bridge are included.

Definitions

Optimism is a popular Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. It combines numerous transactions into one, and then pushes that transaction to Ethereum Mainnet for additional processing. This lowers the burden of transactions on Mainnet, thus allowing for higher throughput.

Optimism users can transact at lower cost and higher speeds. In order to take advantage of Optimism, users have to transfer funds from Mainnet to Optimism through a bridge. When an asset is bridged, the Mainnet token is locked into the bridge contract and a new token is minted on the Layer-2 chain.

There are a few different bridges allowing for transfers from Mainnet to Optimism. In this dashboard, I only look at transfers using the Native Optimism Bridge. The majority of transfers go through the official Optimism bridge.

The chart above shows ETH deposits, withdrawals, and net flows from Mainnet to Optimism. Values are shown in USD.

On most days, net flows to Optimism are positive, but some days have more withdrawals than deposits.

On August 23, there were more than $14M of ETH bridged from Mainnet to Optimism.

So far in September, daily net flows to Optimism are trending higher than in August.

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Takeaways

• The native Optimism bridge enables the transfer of funds from Mainnet to Optimism.
• Over the last 30 days, net flows of ETH from Mainnet to Optimism were positive, but net flows of USDC were negative.
• Daily bridge transfer volumes of USDC are greater than ETH.
• Day-to-day bridge transfer volumes of USDC are highly volatile.

Thank you for reading!

Twitter: @streamust

All writing is my own.

The most popular ERC20 token on the Optimism network is USDC. In fact, there are more USDC than ETH on Optimism (source).

Over the last 30 days, USDC has seen large withdrawal volumes to Mainnet. This is concerning for the adoption of Optimism.

While USDC bridge transfer volumes experience significant day-to-day volatility, the overall net flows over the period are relatively flat.

Technical Notes

Optimism has different bridge contracts. I included transfers from:

1. The main bridge address (0x99c9fc46f92e8a1c0dec1b1747d010903e884be1), and
2. The Optimism teleportr bridge (0x52ec2f3d7c5977a8e558c8d9c6000b615098e8fc)

The above contracts are both official optimism bridges.

Result

The Total Value Locked (TVL) in the Optimism bridge is the current balance of tokens on the Layer-2 chain. When a token is bridged back to Mainnet, it is burned from the bridge contract and re-issued to Mainnet. Thus the TVL of the bridge contract shows net token balances on Optimism.

As we can see in the chart above, the total balances of ETH and USDC on Optimism have experienced long periods of stagnation, and a few periods of rapid increases.