Optimism, Arbitrum retention rates may be worthy of emulation – here’s why

• Optimism’s user-retention was 30% while Arbitrum’s rate was also green.
• Their respective TVLs decreased in the last 30 days.

It is no new development that Optimism [OP] and Arbitrum [ARB] have maintained their position as two of the top Ethereum [ETH] scaling solutions. But what most people don’t know is that both projects have been able to retain a good number of users who are consistent with interactions on their respective mainnet.

How much are 1,10,100 ARBs worth today?

According to Token Terminal, Optimism has been able to retain 30% of its mainnet users in the last 30 days. For Arbitrum, the blockchain data platform also noted that its retention rate was something other projects may need to look into.

On average, @optimismFND Mainnet retains ~30% of its users after one month pic.twitter.com/JH6EAdDQxQ

— Token Terminal (@tokenterminal) September 12, 2023

OP, ARB never fail to show up

Usually, when a project has a great user-retention rate, it means that participants on the blockchain are quite content with the use cases offered by the project. What is more surprising is that both Optimism and Arbitrum airdropped tokens for their early adopters. 

In most cases, airdrops or incentives are not necessary guarantees for keeping user activity on the high. So, this meant that both Arbtirum and Optimism are doing something right to keep users coming back to their mainnet.

There are, however, a number of reasons for this development. In Optimism’s case, it continuously collaborates with other projects and seems to have ensured it’s top of market participants’ minds. This seemed to help it overtake Arbitrum’s market cap.

Even more recently, the opBNB Mainnet went live just a few hours before this writing. The opBNB is a partnership between Optimism and the BNB Chain. Its function is to act as an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible Layer 2 chain based on Optimism OP Stack, which promises to revolutionize the blockchain industry by offering cheaper gas fees and access to blockchain technology.

Prior to the launch, about 35 million on-chain transactions were processed. This involved 435,972 unique wallets, meaning network activity on Optimism was at its peak.

Both TVLs shrink

Arbiturm has also been doing its part to keep its community. For example, it recently introduced the Stylus Testnet which allows developers to build and users to access cheaper gas fees. However, the hike in retention has not translated into an increase for Arbtitrum’s Total Value Locked (TVL).

Source: DefiLlama

Realistic or not, here’s ARB’s market cap in OP terms

The TVL represents the total value of assets locked or staked in a protocol. When the TVL increases, it means liquidity on the protocol has increased. But when it decreases, it implies a lack of money flow.

From the chart above, Arbitrum’s TVL was $1.66 billion, a 16.07% decrease over the last month. But in the last 24 hours, the TVL had increased by 2.72%, meaning that it was getting back its traction. Optimism showed a similar trend. But its TVL was much lower at $642.04 million.

Source: DefiLlama