Optimism offers its users faster and cheaper transactions. But what exactly draws people to this Layer 2 chain? We can attempt to answer this question by looking at users very first transaction on Optimism.

Methodology

New optimism users are addresses that sent ETH or ERC20s tokens to the official Optimism bridge contracts.

Their first transaction can be identified using the min(date) function in

optimism.core.fact_event_logs . The origin_to_address of this transaction is their first interaction with the Optimism chain.

Using this approach, I show the protocols that new Optimism users interacted with on their first transactions. The period of observation is 30 days from August 14 to September 13, 2022.

Uniswap, Hop Protocol, Aave and Velodrome finance are popular first destinations for new Optimism users.

Result

The above plot ranks Optimism protocols for each day of the period of observation. The ranking is based on the daily number of first transactions from new users received by each protocol. Larger dots indicate more transactions.

Newcomers to Optimism interacted a lot with unlabeled addresses. These are all collectively lumped in the null category. It may be more insightful to look at the result excluding unlabeled addresses.

1. Uniswap is a decentralized exchange facilitating trading of ETH and ERC20 tokens. It is available on a variety of EVM compatible chains.
2. Hop Protocol enables the transfer of tokens to various Layer-2 chains and rollups.
3. Aave is decentralized lending market.
4. Velodrome is another decentralized exchange. It competes with Uniswap on Optimism.

First Transactions With the Top Protocols

Aggregate transactions with top Optimism protocols have decreased in September compared to August. On most days, Uniswap attracts the largest volumes of first transactions, with Hop coming in close behind.

Key Findings

• Looking at new users’ first transactions helps us understand why they came to Optimism.

• Optimism is a popular destination to trade assets with Uniswap or to send them across to another rollup chain via Hop.

• Many first transactions interact with unlabeled addresses.

• So far in September, the top Optimism protocols are experiencing a slight reduction in first transactions from new Optimism users.

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