Worldcoin Hype Causes Optimism to Leapfrog Arbitrum in Daily Transactions

Layer-2 blockchain Optimism has surpassed its rival Arbitrum in the amount of daily transactions for the first time in six months, according to Dune Analytics.

On July 25, Optimism racked up a total of 844,290 transactions compared to Arbitrum’s total of 630,534. The rise can be attributed to the release of Worldcoin (WLD), the crypto AI company founded by Chat GPT’s Sam Altman, which is based on the Optimism blockchain.

Despite attracting a mass of scrutiny on launch, Worldcoin has more than 250,000 holders, following an airdrop that rewarded users for having their eyes scanned at select locations around the world.

Optimism’s native token (OP) has risen by 4.5% in the past 24 hours as it appears be to fending off the impending sell pressure from a token unlock this Sunday.

Although it facilitated more on-chain transactions, Optimism’s daily active wallets metric falls short of Arbitrum, with 51,062 compared to 63,893 for Arbitrum.

A portion of the activity on Optimism can also be attributed to Velodrome, the decentralized exchange (DEX) that rolled out its second version last month. Total value locked (TVL) on Velodrome has surged by 39% in the past month to $258 million, according to DefiLlama.