Introduction

Optimism is one of the layer 2 scaling solutions. It’s powered by a technology called Optimistic rollups, which bundle large amounts of transaction data into digestible batches. Optimism is much cheaper to use than Ethereum, and it’s increasingly becoming popular along with other layer 2s. In this dashboard, we will investigate how does the price of Optimism’s native token (OP) compare to the daily trade volume. Specifically, we will look into the following:

• The daily OP price in comparison to the daily swap count on Optimism.
• The daily OP price in comparison to the daily unique swappers count on Optimism.
• The daily swaps and unique swappers on both UniSwap and Velodrome (two of the most popular DEXs of Optimism).
• Top 10 assets that users are swapping TO and FROM on both Velodrome and UniSwap in order to understand better how does the OP token compares amongst other assets.

This dashboard is set to refresh daily.

As we can see, there definitely is some clear correlation between the OP price and how many swaps are executed on Optimism on a daily basis.

It is interesting to notice that the OP swap volume translates almost directly to the OP price. For example, we can see a significant decrease in the swap volume between July 29th and August 1st 2022, which resulted in the OP price dropping from $1.598 to $1.5.

Furthermore, we can also see that it is not only the volume of OP token swaps that affects its price, there is also a correlation between how many users are swapping on Optimism in general and how many swapping transactions are executed (more on this in the later section, where we will look at specific Optimism DEXs).

Swaps on Velodrome and UniSwap

We have seen earlier that the number of swaps and unique swappers on Optimism is highly correlated with the price of the OP token. In the above charts, we can see exactly how many users have been using the two most popular DEXs on Optimism, namely Velodrome and UniSwap. We can see that UniSwap constitutes of a larger total number of swaps and swappers, but we also have to keep in mind that it existed long before Velodrome. The next step is to investigate what users are swapping on both of these platforms - is OP the top one assets swapped to, or does it have any significant competition?

Velodrome swaps TO and FROM: Most popular assets

UniSwap swaps TO and FROM: Most popular assets

Conclusion

This dashboard began the analysis by investigating how strong the correlation between the OP price and the trade volume really is. We have looked at the swap count, the swapper count as well as the OP swap volume on a daily basis, in order to establish that there is a positive correlation - the more swaps, the higher the OP price. We have then moved on to doing some deeper analysis for the two most popular Optimistic DEXs, namely Velodrome and UniSwap. Lastly, we have looked at the top 10 assets that users are swapping to and from on both platforms, in order to establish how popular the OP token is in comparison to other assets.

• Dashboard by -pine-nat-#4310
• Twitter:
• Refresh Rate - Daily
• Data from FlipsideCrypto

On Velodrome, users are mostly swapping to and from the bridge USDC token, followed by the OP token. It is interesting that the Hop Protocol USDC token is the most popular, as it means that there is a lot of interest to bridge in and out of Optimism via the Hop Bridge. It is also good to see that the OP token address comes second when it comes to swaps, as it means that users are still keen to trade the native token. Furthermore, the Velo token is also semi-popular, which brigs back the idea of how successful Velodrome as a platform is on Optimism.

On UniSwap, users have been mostly swapping ETH and USDC, again to bridge into and out of Optimism using the Hop Protocol. We can see that the OP token is still quite popular when it comes to swaps, however the count of swaps is nowhere near to what we have seen on Velodrome!