Optimism (OP) extended its market-defying rally on Thursday, charting its own path as other assets went through a correction. OP added another 10% to its price, recovering to $2.78. The current price moves are still a recovery from the crash of April 2, but OP showed its price is responsive to positive news.
At this relatively low price range, OP can remain volatile and go though more brief corrections. But the project is also among the promising ones, with the potential to line up among top 30 coins and tokens by market capitalization. The current price move is also amplified by traders, as OP is listed among hot pairs to track today.
One of the strongest performers since the last low; $OP.It's up more than 50% already.Expecting to continue running in the coming period, every 20-30% dip is an opportunity to scoop some more. pic.twitter.com/yGg9XHaIza
— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) May 2, 2024
At the same time, OP has volumes of around $500M in 24 hours, but a 2% slippage rate of $898K. The OP/USDT pair on Binance shows a strong buying wall with readiness just under $2 to buy an eventual dip.
Why is Optimism a Hot Project in May
Optimism is now engaged in building its core project, the Superchain. The Optimism project will turn into a hub for new blockchains, which can be deployed without centralized permission.
The OP token was a relatively late arrival, trading since late 2022. Optimism worked as a no-token platform for a long time, focusing on infrastructure rather than trading, and OP is one of the rare tokens to chart an all-time high of $4.70 in 2024.
The Optimism project continues to reinvent itself, and is among the well-funded platforms. Its latest OTC round arrived in March 2024, when the platform raised another $89M from OTC token sales. Currently, only about 24% of all OP tokens are in circulation. More than 50% of the tokens are still held by whale wallets. For now there are no signs of rapid inflows, and OP seems to be held closely by the top addresses.
With the Superchain, Optimism is turning into a hub similar to Polkadot, Cosmos, even Avalanche. The difference is in the way those projects add chains. With Optimism, the project is permissionless, while other networks take a curated approach or require staking or payments to acquire a new slot.
Optimism has now reached the stage of adding new projects and expanding its influence.
Excited to welcome @nymproject with its suite of security tools to the Superchain. 🔴💫@nymproject will help enhance privacy and security for all Superchain users.We'll have the team on Superchain Demo Day on May 9th to showcase. Stay tuned! https://t.co/vEpFfCb5l9
— Optimism (@Optimism) May 2, 2024
The Optimism network, which initially started with the goal of scaling Ethereum, is now joining the cross-chain trend, where users will be able to switch seamlessly between protocols.
The announcements of new projects are coming almost daily. Before the most recent price rally, Optimism also announced the launch of the Redstone mainnet, which is now part of the Superchain.
Today, @RedstoneXYZ Mainnet is officially live and part of the Superchain 🔴🪨Joining the Superchain means scalability, low fees, and contributing revenue to the Optimism Collective to power open source development. pic.twitter.com/izXpzhi8Ne
— Optimism (@Optimism) May 1, 2024
Additionally, Optimism keeps adding gaming projects, which are always in search of faster chains with negligible fees.
Gaming is on the Superchain@redstonexyz is on the Superchain@biomesAW is on the Superchain@skystrifeHQ is on the Superchain@dear_dyr is on the Superchain@DFArchon is on the Superchain@gg_quest_gg is on the Superchain@DownstreamGame is on the Superchain
— Optimism (@Optimism) May 1, 2024
Optimism has also actively curated its selection of new projects and chains, by its native grant program that supported multiple projects over the years.
Optimism Goes Beyond Scaling Ethereum
Optimism derived its name from optimistic rollups, a form of off-chain computation that wrapped transactions and only at the end secured them on the Ethereum network. The Optimism mainnet was a go-to solution for projects that wanted to save on fees, or avoid the delays or losses during periods of high Ethereum gas prices.
Optimism also carries some of the top distributed apps, including its native version of the Uniswap exchange. Decentralized trading on Optimism also includes OKX DEX, as well as Aave. Optimism also bridges to the Base network by Coinbase, tapping into another active user group.
The network also carries nearly 900M in locked liquidity, and hosts more than $1B in various dollar-pegged stablecoins. Optimism also has stable fee revenues, to the tune of $78K every day. Its native cross-chain bridge has locked assets with an estimated value of around $4.7B.
Overall, Optimism is one of the high-profile L2 projects, still showing robust activity in DeFi, gaming, decentralized lending and other protocols.
Superchain Gets Boost from New Participants
The Optimism Superchain is also gaining exposure from all involved projects and their successful performance. In the past week, Zora Chain came into the spotlight, as crypto analyst @ZachXBT minted an NFT of his 15-month long, in-depth investigation of the Lazarus Group of North Korean hackers.
This week's spotlight on @Optimism’s Superchain:⚡What’s happening: @ZachXBT minted his 15-month long investigation into North Korea’s Lazarus Group on @ourZORA⚡Why it matters: The free mint gave users the ability to “own” the digital collectible of the report. There were…
— Token Relations 📊 (@Token_Relations) April 30, 2024
The Optimism team is also helping new projects in the Superchain with both technical issues and exposure.