As a relatively low-cap digital currency, Optimism (OP) is on a bullish tear today, with its price up 7.25% to $1.04 over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. While the growth of Optimism can be explainable based on the broader market performance, the token has arguably carved a niche for itself in the Web 3.0 world, and investors' enthusiasm for it is now enhanced, per the sentiment around its technology.
Optimism (OP) is a Layer 2 (L2) blockchain on top of Ethereum. Optimism benefits from the security of the Ethereum mainnet and helps scale the Ethereum ecosystem by using optimistic rollups. The design of Optimism creates room for additional functionalities for decentralized applications building on the protocol.
While Optimism remains a high flyer and an innovative protocol, its popularity has been subpar as other top L2 competitors, including Polygon (MATIC), have continued to thrive on the frontlines. However, the narrative surrounding Optimism and its underlying technology are bound to change this year as Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's most popular developer, has declared plans to improve work on rollups this year.
While the rollup technology is already changing the game on Ethereum, its relevance and popularity are on track to become more relevant over the coming months. This constitutes a unique fundamental for OP tokens to see impressive highs this year.
Building amid crypto winter
Branded as the next frontier in blockchain-based and decentralized infrastructure, Optimism, as well as other Layer 2 protocols powered by rollup technology, is committed to continuous building despite the ongoing crypto winter.
As an infrastructure-based protocol, investors within the OP ecosystem are, as the name suggests, optimistic about the new milestones the token will break moving forward. Compared to the all-time high (ATH) of $4.57 it recorded about seven months ago, expectations are mounting regarding whether OP has enough of a technological and fundamental basis to retest new highs this year.