Optimism’s transaction costs aren’t enough to beat zkSync Era; here’s why

• Optimism had a transaction cost of $0.06 while zkSync’s cost was $0.14.
• OP was down by 10% last week and metrics looked bearish. 

Ethereum [ETH] Layer 2s are gaining massive popularity, and the pack is being led by zkSync Era and Optimism [OP]. Both had their own unique advantages and were competing neck-to-neck in terms of network activity. 

Read Optimism’s [OP] Price Prediction 2023-24

zkSync Era vs. Optimism 

As per Dune Analytics, zkSync Era was the most profitable L2, as it accounted for more than 42% of total rollups’ revenue at press time. Meanwhile, OP’s profits were the lowest, at only 15%. 

Source: Dune

Poopman, a popular X handle that posts updates related to DeFi, pointed out that despite zkSync being the most profitable, Optimism stole the limelight, if transaction cost is considered.

The L2’s transaction cost was considerably lower than that of zkSync, which looked encouraging.

.@zksync is the most profitable L2 among all others.

Yet, It is also the most expensive L2 to use.

Within a year, @zksync has earned a profit of $15.30M from transaction fee alone (Excl. operator costs) ?

Following behind,
? @arbitrum has earned $11.63M ?
? @optimismFND… pic.twitter.com/ZcrfHSmACC

— Poopman (ve ?, ?) (@poopmandefi) August 28, 2023

The reason behind zkSync’s higher transaction cost is that it needs to submit validity proof to prove the correctness of batches. As a result, costs are incurred, making zkSync substantially more expensive than OP.

A lower transaction cost might help onboard new users, suggesting a possibility of OP overtaking zkSync in network activity over the months to come.

However, that was not the last, as Artemis’ data revealed that zkSync’s network activity was higher. OP’s daily active addresses and daily transactions were both considerably lower than those of zkSync. In fact, zkSync recently achieved a significant milestone by surpassing 100 million transactions.

While zkSync’s DEX volume gained upward momentum, OP’s graph moved in the opposite direction. Nonetheless, Optimism dominated zkSync in terms of TVL.

Source: Artemis

OP investors are worried

Not only was OP behind zkSync in terms of network activity, but OP investors were also not having a good time. According to CoinMarketCap, OP was down by nearly 10% over the last seven days. At the time of writing, it was trading at $1.42 with a market capitalization of over $1 billion. 

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

The red price chart increased negative sentiments around the token in the crypto market. Optimism’s network growth dropped sharply last week, meaning that fewer new addresses were created to transfer the token.

Another bearish metric was OP’s MVRV ratio, which plummeted sharply, thanks to the price drop.