Triaconta Weekly #288

The following topics will be addressed in this weekly:

  • Bundle performance
  • Winners & Losers
  • What is Optimism (OP) ?

Bundle performance
Bitcoin struggles to rise further. A US interest rate cut seems further away according to the latest Fed meeting minutes. More Bitcoin was sold than bought for the first time with Bitcoin ETFs proving to be price sensitive. The entire market is unsure about which direction to go. The PennyStock bundle has taken over the position of best-performing 2024 bundle from the Big 3 bundle for a while in these volatile times.

Big3:
1 Month: +26.15% | 7D: -1.90% | 24H: -1.20%

Top30:
1 Month: +29.14% | 7D: -1.28% | 24H: -1.65%

Penny:
1 Month: +47.10% | 7D: +8.86% | 24H: +2.16%

DeFi:
1 Month: +23.51% | 7D: -5.29% | 24H: -3.32%

Bitcoin halving countdown: 60 days. This figure is a weekly new estimate based on the current blockchain hashrate.

Winners & Losers
A bizarre rise in JasmyCoin (+130%) this week unfortunately about a day after this coin left the PennyStock due to revision. There is no news of any developments in this project but apparently on the exact same day, Japanese rules to invest in crypto were significantly relaxed for big investors. Former PennyStock SiaCoin (+67%) also recorded a second week of hefty gains, unfortunately again without any relevant news. So could things be turning out for this digital cloud storage provider after all? Another big riser is former PennyStock Fetch.AI (+58%) as AI continues to do well, just look at the sales and profit figures of AI chip supplier NVidia. This project is still slightly too small for the Top30 but has a good chance of being added this year. Within DeFi and Top30, TheGraph (+41%) is the top currency this week with its rollout of ” AI-assisted querying”. There were also some declines such as DeFi projects Thorchain (-15%) and RocketPool (-13%) which, like market leader Lido DAO (-9%), failed to benefit from the Ethereum (+4%) rise. Aribitrum (-12%) seems to be reacting to the growing success of competitor Optimism (-2%).

What is Optimism (OP) ?

Optimism is simply a solution to improve Ethereum’s scalability. Ethereum’s blockchain currently already cannot handle the large number of transactions, leading to congestion and high cost per transaction. Optimism is a so-called layer 2 solution that uses ‘optimistic rollups’. Layer 2 (L2) indicates a blockchain that is very closely connected to a Layer 1 blockchain, in this case Ethereum.

Transactions are handled very quickly on this L2 by “optimistically” considering all transactions as valid. The data of all transactions together is “rolled up” and placed in summarised form on the L1, which is obviously much faster and cheaper than placing all transactions individually on the L1. This allows the L2 to provide high throughput at low cost, while still using all the features and services of the L1 Ethereum.

The security and reliability of Ethereum also remains the foundation of this solution. Everything is summarised and recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. Only when one of Optimism’s nodes or verifiers questions the validity of a summary, a verification calculation takes place and a possible correction. In the vast majority of cases, there is no dispute about a block so it is not necessary. dApp developers benefit enormously from scalability solutions like Optimism. Their dApps work faster and cheaper when the underlying transactions are handled through this layer, and they can’t really do without it by now.

Who is Optimism ?
Optimism was founded in 2019 by Jinglan Wang, Benjamin Jones, Karl Floersch and Kevin Ho. The company is headquartered in New York. Jinglan Wang was introduced to the Ethereum community by Vitalik Buterin. She moved to San Francisco to work with Joseph Poon on Handshake, a decentralised naming project. Wang began her involvement with Plasma, now Optimism, by participating in the Cryptoeconomics.Study course together with Karl Floersch (CEO since May ’23)While working on the course, especially on the chapter on Plasma, she realised that the concept seemed relatively simple and wondered why it had not yet been implemented.

Future
In the future, Ethereum will continue to be improved and accelerated. Optimism will then remain necessary as the use of dApps will also increase and any acceleration of Ethereum will also further accelerate Optimism. Optimism is now the second-largest Ethereum layer 2 solution with 16% of the total value captured in its smart contracts, according to Defi Llama. Arbitrum is in first place with 55%.
Synthetix Network (SNX) is the largest user of Optimism. Uniswap (UNI) the number 2. Currently, there are more than 35 protocols using Optimism. Wallet addresses on Optimism are the same as on Ethereum. Often, within the dApp, you can choose which network you want to use, Ethereum or the faster and cheaper Optimism. The more applications use Optimism the more this blockchain becomes worth.