More than 55% of Optimism (OP) Airdrop Was Claimed by 100,000 Addresses

Optimism, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum’s network, attempts to reverse the negative price dynamics by offering airdrop and involving more than 100,000 addresses claiming its airdropped tokens.

Optimism’s Tokenomics

One of the major causes of Ethereum’s rapid decline in the past few months was its high gas fees and inapplicability to many medium and small projects. Optimism aims to address this problem by offering innovative scaling solutions that successfully integrate the maximum security guarantees provided by Ethereum’s network and low-cost functionality derived from the layer-2 framework. According to Optimism’s developers, the system has already saved more than $1 billion in users’ gas fees. Its on-chain value exceeds $800 million and continues to increase even further.

The higher scalability provided by Optimism constitutes its major competitive advantage in regards to alternative projects. The network fees can be reduced up to 100 times, thus eliminating the major inefficiencies of Ethereum’s ecosystem. There are more than 240,000 addresses eligible for airdrop. More than 100,000 addresses have already claimed their tokens during airdrop, implying that about 55% of all tokens distributed through airdrop are successfully claimed. In this manner, Optimism can establish a loyal user base that may be used for further promoting its market capitalization in the following months.

Market Capitalization and Price Analysis

Optimism’s current price equals $1.13, and its total market supply is 4.3 billion tokens. The fully diluted market capitalization is $4.77 billion, while the actual market capitalization is still unspecified because the airdrop continues. Despite high investors’ interest in the project, OP’s price has declined during the first two days of its offerings. As the starting price was about $4.5, it gradually declined to just above $1. Currently, OP’s price tends to consolidate in this area.

At the present moment, the major support level is at the price of $0.8-$0.9 which corresponds to the local minimum reached within the past few days. This level prevents Optimism from depreciating and losing market value. At the same time, there is a strong resistance level at the price of $2 that prevents the token’s price from appreciating further. OP may continue to follow this horizontal channel until new fundamental factors emerge. Only after exceeding the important level of $2, OP can approach its historical maximum.

The following major reasons explain the fact OP does not demonstrate sustainable market appreciation in the first few days after its airdrop. First, investors are still concerned about the high levels of market uncertainty and risks. Therefore, they may tend to avoid high-risk projects. Second, the low demand for ETH resulted in the radical reduction of gas fees to minimums within the past year. Therefore, the potential value that can be provided by Optimism has declined proportionally for those users who primarily aim to minimize their transaction fees. Third, OP’s price may still be highly dependent on the dynamics of BTC, ETH, and other major cryptocurrencies. Thus, its growth under the conditions of the prolonged “crypto winter” appears to be problematic.

Arbitrum’s Possible Airdrop

Arbitrum is the Optimistic rollup used for scaling Ethereum, and it is expected to provide even higher scalability and privacy options for holders. Moreover, the possibility to run Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) contracts may be appealing to many users. Arbitrum does not have a token at the moment but it can introduce it soon. Moreover, it may initiate airdrop for users who use their bridge. Therefore, there is speculation among crypto enthusiasts about the reasonability of becoming active participants of its system with the expectation of potential benefits to be derived from the future airdrop.

The major recommendations in this regard refer to using Arbitrum’s bridge page and connecting it to Ethereum’s wallet. Then, respective transactions between layer 1 and layer 2 addresses can be made. Hop Protocol also allows users to integrate both Optimism and Arbitrum. By bridging various assets and using other functionality options, people may be eligible for the potential airdrop. Although there is no direct evidence about the airdrop being initiated in the near future and eligibility criteria selected, many members recognize the potential of the scaling and privacy solutions offered by Arbitrum and try to maintain their high activity in the network.