Optimism Network Activity Plummets After OP Token Hits New ATH
On January 25, the OP token of Optimism surged to a new all-time high (ATH) of $2.555, the highest price ever recorded for this token and the peak value since August 2022.
Since the start of 2023, OP has skyrocketed by 178%, rising from $0.918 to $2.555, before adjusting to around $2.10 at the time of this update.
The impressive surge in Optimism’s token value has been driven by several factors, including a general recovery in the cryptocurrency market throughout January, growing interest in liquid staking and layer-2 projects in anticipation of Ethereum's upcoming upgrade, and the recent conclusion of the Optimism Quests program.
Optimism Quests was an initiative designed to engage crypto users and educate them about the project and the broader crypto space. However, many participants expected that this program would serve as a criterion for Optimism to conduct its next OP airdrop.
As reported by Coin68, Optimism first launched the OP token in April 2022 and airdropped it to users who had previously interacted with this layer-2 solution. The June 2022 airdrop generated significant buzz, with many recipients receiving valuable token allocations.
Since then, Optimism has not conducted any further OP airdrops for the general public as initially promised, instead allocating a small amount of OP tokens for ecosystem development activities.
Consequently, many believe that the Optimism Quests program was essentially a qualifying criterion for receiving future airdrops, especially since participants earned NFTs as proof of task completion.
Announced at the end of September 2022 and running until January 18, 2023, Optimism Quests saw a consistent increase in transaction volume on the Optimism network, peaking near the program’s end. However, post-program activity on Optimism has sharply declined, reverting to levels seen before November 2022.
According to data from Dune Analytics, during the program, over 450,000 wallets received approximately 3.4 million NFTs for completing Optimism Quest tasks.
In the past, a competing layer-2 network, Arbitrum, also launched a similar program called Arbitrum Odyssey. However, Arbitrum has yet to release its ARBI token, despite ongoing rumors and speculation.
