What Is Optimism?

Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. It helps reduce the transaction fee and transaction time on the Ethereum blockchain.

Broadly speaking, Optimism helps solve Ethereum’s scalability dilemma. Scalability refers to the rate of transactions per second (TPS) on a blockchain network.

How Optimism Solves Scalability Issues on the Ethereum Network

It's understood that Ethereum is one of the most secure and decentralized blockchains in existence. To keep everything running smoothly, the network is built around three properties: Decentralization, security and scalability. However, because of the limitations due to the blockchain trilemma, Ethereum can only deploy two out of these three properties effectively.

To keep the network functional, the governing body behind Ethereum decided to sacrifice scalability for the sake of security and decentralization. As of this writing, Ethereum has reached its capacity to handle more than one million transactions per day. When this occurs, the Ethereum network cannot scale anymore and will become congested as a result.

Once the blockspace becomes scarce, users on the Ethereum network enter a bidding war in an attempt to get their transactions on the next block. As a result, the gas price rises, making it significantly less affordable for an average user to benefit from a transaction. Besides paying a high gas fee, users on the Ethereum network must also endure long wait times for their transactions to clear.

What Is Ethereum?

The term ‘Ether’ may not be familiar to you. However, there is a far bigger chance that the term ‘Ethereum’ is familiar. When you hear this term, you may think Ethereum refers to the cryptocurrency, the second biggest by market capitalization.

Although this is often branded as cryptocurrency by those even in the industry, it is technically incorrect. Ether (ETH) is actually the cryptocurrency, and Ethereum is the network it runs on.

How Does Ethereum Work? Ethereum is an open software platform created back in 2015. It is built on blockchain technology, which enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications and smart contracts.

Thanks to this blockchain technology, the information shared on the platform (through a network of computers called nodes) cannot be manipulated or changed. Also, this technology effectively takes out the middleman in transactions made on the network. So, for example, housing contracts can be drawn up without housing agents, or money transfers can be made without banks.

Most recently, Visa has started accepting transactions of stablecoins on the Ethereum blockchain.

Source: bybit

PART 3 - Optimism Fee

PART 1 - [Summary]

PART 2 - Optimism Transactions and Users

Total transactions

• As we see, the number of total transactions in Ethereum is much higher than in the Optimism network. It’s about 12-13x higher. Total transactions of Ethereum in the past 30 days are about 34.5M txs and the average total txs per minute is about 803. These number is 4.61M txs (total) and 106 txs (avg txs per minute).
• This is despite the fact that the number of unique users who have transacted in Ethereum is almost 30 times the number of users in Optimism.

Succeeded transactions

• The number of transactions on Ethereum was about 33.2 million transactions, which was equal to 4.16 million transactions for Optimism in the same period.

• The average number of successful transactions for Ethereum is 773 transactions per minute and for Optimism, it is 96 successful transactions per minute.

• The percentage of successful transactions to total transactions in Ethereum is 96.2%, while this number is 90.3% for Optimism. What we expected was that it would be higher for layer 2 because the cost per transaction is much lower.

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Failed transactions

• But in the failed transactions section, the total number of these transactions for Ethereum was equal to 1.2M transactions, and for Optimism equal to 449k transactions.
• The average number of failed transactions per minute for Ethereum was 30 and for Optimism, it was 11 failed transactions per minute.
• The part that determines which performance was better is the percentage of failed transactions to the total number of transactions, in which Ethereum is equal to 3.8% and Optimism is equal to 9.7%. So it means that the performance of Ethereum has been better.

Methodology

In the first part of this dashboard, we will compare the performance and speed of the two Optimism (L2) and Ethereum (L1) networks in the past 30 days.

we will compare total transactions and average total transactions per minute (TPM), succeeded transactions and failed transactions for both networks.

In the second part, we examine Optimism transactions and users from different aspects.

In the third part, we examine the transaction fee in Optimism

In this chart, we see the number of transactions processed per minute. On August 11, 1711 transactions were processed per minute. One of the main reasons for the growth in the number of transactions in Optimism can be the increase in the price of Ethereum in the market.

In the left chart, we see the successful transactions processed on Optimism from June to August on a daily basis.

At the beginning of July, the number of transactions was low on optimism. But since July 17, we see the upward trend of transactions. The reason can be the attraction of new partners by Optimism, which caused a 300% growth in the price of the Optimism token.

The highest number of successful transactions on July 29 was on optimism.

also, we see the status of transactions processed on Optimism in July.

The highest number of successful transactions was on July 29 and equal to 233,318 transactions.

The highest number of failed transactions was on July 29, equal to 38,406 transactions.

More than 8 million successful transactions were processed on Optimism from June to August.

In the chart, we see the number of new users in Optimism on a daily basis. The highest number of new users entered Optimism on June 27 with 43,518 users.

On July 27, 34,409 new users have used Optimism.

In the above charts, we see the status of payment fees for transactions in the Optimism network. The highest paid fee on July 27 was $0.8. from July 18, the transaction fee rate has increased. One of the main reasons for the growth of the Optimism network and Optimism's superiority over its competitors has been.

The Optimism as L2 is known for its lower transactions fee. When using Optimism, transaction fees must still be paid in ETH. The total paid fee on this network is 19.2 ETH.

The average transactions per user on Optimism is about 16 transactions and the average paid fee by users is 0.000045 ETH which is very small in compariosn with paid fee on Ethereum blockchain.

Conclusion

• Optimism - Total Transactions: 4.61M (past 30 days)

• Ethereum - Total Transactions: 34.5M (past 30 days)

• Ethereum - Total Average Transactions Per Minute: 803

• Optimism - Total Average Transactions Per Minute: 106

• Ethereum - Total Succeeded Transactions: 33.2M (past 30 days)

• Optimism - Total Succeeded Transactions: 4.16M (past 30 days)

• Total Number of Active Users on Optimism: 413k

• The highest number of successful transactions was on July 29 and equal to 233,318 transactions.

• More than 8 million successful transactions were processed on Optimism from June to August.

• Total Paid Fee on Optimism: 25

• The highest paid fee on July 27 was $0.8. from July 18, the transaction fee rate has increased.

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From the above analysis, we can conclude that despite being new, Optimism has managed to attract users well, as Optimism is the most prominent project of Ethereum layer 2 and is ahead of its competitors.