An On-chain Analysis of Optimism
As we navigate through a landscape constantly reshaped by fluctuations and innovations, understanding the subtleties of market dynamics becomes extremely important for everyone. Taking a deep dive into the on-chain data could provide insights that aren’t immediately clear if you do some quick research. With this in mind, we’re going to take a closer look at $OP, including holder analysis, network dynamics, and how the network measures up to other L2s.
OP Holder Profit Analysis
One of our most popular indicators is the In & Out of the Money indicator. This indicator shows at what price holders acquired their assets and visualizes this by grouping the data. Currently, about 27.19% of OP holders find themselves in a profitable position. While this figure might initially appear low, it is critical to contextualize it within the broader market. For instance, we see much lower percentages with ARB, where 96.19% of holders are at a loss. This data underscores a relative strength in OP’s position given market conditions.
User Inflow Dynamics: A Closer Look
Shifting our focus to user inflow dynamics over the majority of the year, it becomes evident that the market hasn’t welcomed a lot of new users. However, it is important not to overlook the occasional surges that various assets have witnessed. In the case of $OP, a noteworthy uptick in new address creation came towards the end of August, recording 11k new addresses, followed by another substantial surge of 7.2k in the early days of September. Finally, we witnessed a significant surge on the 15th of September, with over 88K new addresses in one day. These spurts indicate punctuated yet significant interest, a positive sign for the Optimism network.
Understanding $OP Holder Behaviour
When we look at ownership data, The first thing that stands out is the first growth in long-term holders starting in June of this year. If we look back at historical data, we can see that Optimism traders really started coming to the network around the beginning of October 2022. We can thus expect many of these holders to join the “long-term holders” in the next few months.
As for the holder concentration, we can see that the majority of tokens are still held by whales. Nonetheless, there’s an important shift happening here. At the start of the year, around 5% of the $OP supply was held by retail. Currently, the figure has doubled to more than 10%. This is a promising sign, as retail adoption is key to healthy network economics.
Comparison to other L2s
Finally, let’s compare the Optimism network to other L2s. The following indicator provides insight into the number of transactions executed across Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base layer 2 solutions, all of which are integrated into the Ethereum Blockchain’s framework. Up until the beginning of August, Arbitrum had notably maintained its lead in the number of transactions processed within these three ecosystems. However, in recent months, Optimism has garnered substantial attention due to its groundbreaking innovations centered around the Superchain concept. This visionary approach involves expanding the OP stack to facilitate a smoother deployment for autonomous chains, while still benefiting from the security provided by the Optimism chain.
Furthermore, the landscape evolved with the introduction of Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 solution, which was integrated into the OP stack. Impressively, Base managed to surpass both Arbitrum and Optimism in terms of transaction processing, underscoring its growing prominence in this dynamic ecosystem.
Wrapping up
In wrapping up our analysis of Optimism, it’s clear that it holds a promising position in the current market. Although only a moderate percentage of $OP holders are profiting at the moment, it stands strong compared to similar assets like ARB. Recent data showcases bursts of increased interest in $OP, indicated by notable upticks in new users and increasing retail dominance. When we look at its performance against other Layer 2 solutions, Optimism has made remarkable strides, particularly with innovations such as the Superchain concept, and by integrating with Coinbase’s Base solution.
