The competition among the top performers of Ethereum L2: How do Arbitrum and Optimism each perform?

Author: A Poplar Tree

On September 1, the Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum announced the official launch of its mainnet public test version, Arbitrum One. This version lifted the whitelist restrictions and opened to all users. In the past month, many DeFi applications have also gone live, and the Arbitrum ecosystem is gradually taking shape.

At the same time, another Ethereum scaling solution, Optimism, has also opened up usage for certain applications ------ first, on January 16, the Optimism mainnet began a soft launch and initiated the SNX staking service on the synthetic asset protocol Synthetix. Subsequently, on July 14, Uniswap V3 officially launched on the Optimism mainnet.

So, currently, as both Arbitrum and Optimism are Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solutions based on Optimistic Rollup, what specific data do they each present, and how do their ecological development patterns compare? Let’s do a simple comparison.

Basic Data

Unique Address Count

Data from Arbiscan.io shows that as of September 21, the number of unique addresses on the Arbitrum network has surpassed 155,200 (155,274), which is more than 20 times the 6,409 addresses on September 1.

Since September 10, the growth rate has been astonishing, with an average of over 10,000 unique addresses added daily. On September 12, there was even a single-day addition of 28,930 unique addresses, setting a new historical record for daily additions.

At the same time, data from the Optimism explorer shows that as of September 21, the number of unique addresses on the Optimism network has surpassed 120,153, which is nearly 3 times the 41,162 addresses on September 1.

Similarly, since September 10, there has been a noticeable acceleration, with an average of about 7,000 unique addresses added daily. On September 12, there was a single-day addition of 16,128 unique addresses, also setting a new historical record for daily additions.

Total Value Locked (TVL)

According to data from L2BEAT, as of September 21, the total locked value on the Arbitrum network has surpassed $2.1 billion, with a -8.61% change over the past 7 days, ranking first in total locked value among Ethereum L2 networks.

In contrast, the total locked value on the Optimism network as of September 21 is $192.3 million, with a -7.99% change over the past 7 days, ranking third in total locked value among Ethereum L2 networks.

It is worth noting that after Arbitrum launched on September 2, its mainnet locked value exceeded $20 million, and then on September 10, it first surpassed $100 million. In the last two weeks, it has surged over 20 times, while Optimism's growth this month has been less than 50%, showing a significantly slower growth momentum compared to Arbitrum.

Transaction Cost Comparison

Currently, Arbitrum and Optimism have specific leading DeFi projects that can serve as data reference ------ the transfer cost is approximately half that of the Ethereum mainnet, while other more complex transaction requirements range from about one-tenth to several-tenths of Ethereum's costs. For more details, you can read “How Much Cheaper Are Arbitrum and Optimism Compared to L1?”:

Cost of entering the L2 network: Optimism is 2 times that of Arbitrum
The gas consumption for Arbitrum's gateway is 91,000 (about $30);
The gas consumption for Optimism's gateway is 210,000 (about $70);
The gas consumption for ETH transfers on the Ethereum mainnet is 21,000 (about $7);

Cost of regular transfers: About half of L1
The cost of a transfer on Arbitrum is approximately 0.000716 ETH ($2.5);
The cost of a transfer on Optimism is approximately 0.000838 ETH ($2.9);
The cost of a transfer on the Ethereum mainnet is 0.001995 ETH ($7);

Uniswap V3 transactions: Only one-tenth of L1
The cost of a transaction on Arbitrum is approximately 0.00122 ETH ($4.30);
The cost of a transaction on Optimism is approximately 0.0012648 ETH ($4.4);
The cost of a transaction on the Ethereum mainnet is approximately 0.01771 ETH ($62);

Adding liquidity to Uniswap V3: Optimism has a clear advantage, only one-thirtieth of L1
The cost of providing liquidity on Arbitrum is approximately 0.0044796 ETH ($16);
The cost of providing liquidity on Optimism is approximately 0.001253 ETH ($4.4);
The cost of providing liquidity on the Ethereum mainnet is approximately 0.03456 ETH ($120);

The article also mentions that although both Optimism and Arbitrum can achieve a certain degree of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatibility, their gas calculation methods differ from the mainnet. Therefore, when comparing the costs of these networks, the parameter Gas Used cannot be used directly.

However, the author conducted a practical transaction test of "exchanging several ETH for 1 USDC" on both the Optimism and Arbitrum networks at similar time points for a simple comparative reference.

On the Optimism network, the wallet approval transaction showed a Gwei value of 0.015, with actual gas used being 3,333,842, and the total transaction cost being 0.000816904065 ETH, approximately $2.35;

On the Arbitrum network, the actual Gwei value was 0.798, with actual gas used being 1,247,990, and the total transaction cost being 0.00099538548101 ETH, approximately $2.88;

In this specific transaction, although the Gwei value on the Optimism network at 0.015 is significantly lower than Arbitrum's Gwei value of around 1.5 (actual around 0.8), the actual gas consumed is much higher than that of the Arbitrum network.

In this comparative transaction, the cost on Optimism is slightly lower than that on the Arbitrum network, but based on the author's previous multiple test transactions, the actual transaction fees on Arbitrum are often slightly lower than those on the Optimism network.

The real-time data from the L2Fees website also shows that the current network fees for Arbitrum and Optimism are basically on par, with Optimism being slightly more expensive, but both are nearly an order of magnitude lower than the Ethereum mainnet.

Ecological Status

Overall, Arbitrum is experiencing rapid growth, both in terms of volume and diversification of projects, while Optimism's growth is relatively slow, primarily centered around the Synthetix ecosystem.

Since the official launch of the Arbitrum network, in addition to leading DeFi applications like Uniswap V3, Curve, and SushiSwap, a series of DApps or DeFi tools such as the lending protocol WePiggy, the trading protocol Balancer, the perpetual contract trading platform MCDEX V3, and the derivatives platform SynFutures have also gradually launched or are planned to launch on the Arbitrum network, leading to an increasingly diverse ecosystem.

In contrast, the Optimism network, aside from the two leading DeFi applications Uniswap and Synthetix, currently has only a few applications based on Synthetix, such as the derivatives trading platform Kwenta (launched on July 30) and the options protocol Lyra (launched on August 25), which are essentially sub-projects of the Synthetix ecosystem. This is also related to Synthetix's consistent support for Optimism (since last year, Synthetix has participated in Optimism's testnet and launched the SNX reward program).

The most notable data is from Uniswap V3 on the Optimism network: the asset with the highest locked value is the stablecoin DAI ($13.15 million), followed by ETH ($7.92 million) and sUSD ($6.04 million, which is the synthetic dollar stablecoin in the Synthetix network, generated through over-collateralization of SNX).

In the liquidity pool, the asset with the highest volume is also sUSD/DAI, reaching $13.82 million, which indirectly confirms the importance of the Synthetix ecosystem to the Optimism network at least up to now (of course, the sUSD/DAI pair should also be related to Lyra's recent liquidity incentives, which can be further explored in “On-chain options protocol Lyra launches its first LYRA liquidity incentive pool on the Optimism mainnet through the LEAP-3 proposal”).