2023 Summary for Optimistic Rollups

This research piece summarizes some of the notable developments made by optimistic rollups (ORs) in 2023. ORs have captured the largest total value locked (TVL) of the four categories of Ethereum L2s, namely ORs, zero-knowledge rollups, validiums and optimiums, due to the launch of two major OR governance tokens and the robustness of its ecosystems.

Arbitrum One was the largest L2 by TVL, even before the launch of its ARB governance token. Following the launch of the ARB token, over $2 billion worth of liquidity was supposedly introduced into the Arbitrum One ecosystem, further propelling Arbitrum One ahead of all other L2s. However, not all of these tokens were distributed, so the net injection of accessible liquidity was closer to $1.25 billion at the time. Over time, the Arbitrum DAO plans to continue distributing ARB grants to incentivize protocols to develop on Arbitrum One and attract more users into the ecosystem.