What is Optimism?

Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. Instead of running all computation and data on the Ethereum network, Optimism puts all transaction data on-chain and runs computation off-chain

What is the OP token?

The OP token is the governance token of Optimism and holders of the tokens can vote in governace in proportion to their holdings .

What was the Optimism phase 0 token distribution?

The phase 0 distributions was an air-drop to activly building protocols on Optimism. Protocols where givein diffrent leveles of tokens based on the teir score optimism gave them. If aprotocol was naive to Optimism it would get 3x the Airdrop.

Methodology

In this dashboard we are looking to see what effect the OP distribution to protocols had on the protocols the data from this dashboard comes from the optimism.core.fact_event_logs and optimism.core.dim_labels tables of Flipsides database. The middle section of this dashboard will display data for the protocol named in the project box in the top left. If some of the charts are taking long to load once the project box is selected the protocol may not have contracts labeled in the optimism.core.dim_labels table.

Observations

• Starting at the beginning of July there was a significant increase in the number of users and transactions on Protocols give Phase 0 Grants.
• Out of all the protocols given Phase 0 grants Hop, Synthetics, and Uniswap have the most activity.
• There is not a correlation between a protocols OP grant size and the current activity of the protocol.

Observations

• Most of the protocols given grants from Optimism in Phase 0 have had large increases in Users or transactions since mid-June.
• Many of the protocols have large spikes in activity when they deploy their OP rewards for liquidity mining or other Consumer benefiting ways.

Observations

• When the Velodrome incentives started there was a massive increase in swaps, swap volume, and users swapping velodrome.
• The average daily swappers on Velodrome after the incentives is about 400% the average number of users before the incentives.
• The average daily swap volume on Velodrome after the incentives is about 1000% the average number of users before the incentives.

Conclusion

The protocols that received OP rewards spent them in many varying ways. Since the deployment of these rewards there has been a large increase in Users and activities on these protocols as a whole with some gain much mor traction than others.

How are protocols spending their OP grants?

Velodrome: Incentivize initial liquidity providers and long term veVELO stakes

Perpetual protocol: retroactive OP airdrop to LPs, liquidity incentives, grant program

Synthetix: Incentivizing SNX stakes on Optimism

Lyra: 20% to builders, 56% to liquidity providers, 16% to Traders, 6% hackathon, 10% retroactive airdrop

1inch: tokens went to their treasury

Chainlink: all funds going to participating in the Chainlink Network over time

Uniswap: 20% to uniswap L2 builders, Liquidity Mining

Hop protocol: reduce the fees for users to onboard to Optimism

Stargate finance: 70% liquidity mining, 30% partner integrations

Celer: 65% liquidity mining, 15% Onboarding, 20% builder grants

Synapse: 15% to Developers, 45% to liquidity providers, 40% stablecoins/syn pool

Pika protocol: 16% trader rewards, 61% liquidity incentives, 22% liquidity Backstop

Rubicon: 60% liquidity mining, 15% grants program, 10% OP liquidity pool, 15% airdrop

Kwenta: Platform Migration incentives 66.7%, DAO contribution incentives 33.3%

Thales: Incentivizing users betting on pari-mutuel contracts

Polynomial protocol: 20% retroactive airdrop, 50% liquidity mining, 14% grants, 12% deposited into vaults

Aelin: sold for sUSD

Zipswap: 70% gas fee rebates, 30% liquidity mining

Layer zero: 50% auction to rase s*USDC, 40% liquidity Mining, 10% partner integrations

Clipper: Trader Mining 35%, Limited Liquidity Mining 20%, Builder Acquisition 15%, Retroactive Airdrop/Gas Reimbursement 10%

Gelato: 83% Subsidizing infrastructure costs, 17% Gelato/OP Builder Bounties