Optimism, the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, has experienced a significant surge in daily transaction activity, reaching an impressive count of 944,668 on Thursday. This achievement stands as a remarkable leap, surpassing the previous count of 660,000 transactions recorded by Arbitrum.
This milestone not only showcases Optimism’s prowess but also signifies the conclusion of Arbitrum’s six-month reign as the layer-2 platform with the highest daily transaction volume.
The noteworthy surge in Optimism’s transaction activity can be largely attributed to the growing popularity and engagement surrounding Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency founded by Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT.
Presently operating within the framework of the Optimism Network, Worldcoin is on a mission to establish online human authentication through its flagship feature, World ID. During its beta phase, Worldcoin has managed to capture widespread attention and adoption, amassing a user base of over two million individuals. The team behind Worldcoin is actively orchestrating expansion strategies that will empower residents of 35 cities across 20 countries to enroll in Worldcoin’s services. In exchange for using their iris scans, participants will receive WLD, the native asset of the ecosystem.
Insights gleaned from Dune Analytics suggest the possibility of further spikes in transaction counts on Optimism, as there remain pre-launch wallets that have yet to migrate to the Optimism Network.
Arbitrum Remains at the Forefront
Despite the recent surge in achievements, both Optimism and other layer-2 networks are still following behind Arbitrum when it comes to metrics such as total value locked (TVL) and the number of active wallet addresses. Following the Shapella upgrade in April, Arbitrum had successfully exceeded the five million accounts mark. It continues to hold a considerable 57.86% share of the Layer 2 (L2) market, with a substantial $5.98 billion locked within smart contracts. In contrast, Optimism constitutes 27.3% of the market share, with a total value locked of $2.83 billion.
Both Optimism and Arbitrum have received substantial backing from venture capital investors, and they are both part of the Optimistic rollup framework, designed with the primary goal of scaling the Ethereum network. The fundamental principle behind Optimistic Rollups involves consolidating multiple transactions into a single data structure called a batch, which is then submitted to the Ethereum main chain.
Instead of executing each transaction directly on the main chain – a process that could be slow and costly – the rollup method processes these transactions off-chain in a trustless manner. Once these transactions are verified, the batch is posted on the Ethereum main chain, and its validity is ensured through the involvement of a set of validators.
In addition to Optimistic Rollups, another scaling solution known as ZK-rollup is being advocated by zkSync, a project that has received substantial funding nearing half a billion dollars.
