Introduction 

Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base are currently among the top 10 blockchains in terms of TVL. Other newly launched L2 projects like ZkSync, Mantle, Linea, and Scroll are drawing attention. In their recent L2 reports, Coin98 Analytics stated that in the past week:

• Optimism surpassed #Base and took the lead with the highest total addresses
• Arbitrum has emerged as the leader in the highest daily transactions and reached over $2B total TVL
• Base leads in daily new NFTs

According to the report, Optimism TVL's growth in the past week is 10%; more than Arbitrum (9%) and Base (1%). Among DeFi projects built on Optimism, Velodrome is the leading DEX and is the second top DeFi protocol on Optimism after Synthetix.

What is Velodromes?

Velodrome is an Optimism-native AMM designed to offer extensive liquidity, minimal swapping fees, and reduced slippage. On Velodrome, users can effortlessly exchange their tokens, contribute liquidity to pools, and stake their $VELO, the native token of Velodrome, to earn yields.

Velodrome TVL

As of early February 2023, the total value locked on Velodrome has exceeded its previous all-time high set in the beginning of August 2022. In March 2023, Velodrome hit an ATH TVL of an impressive $317M. Although it experienced some fluctuations with a slight decreasing trend, Velodrome remains the second-largest DeFi platform on Optimism in terms of TVL.

At the time of writing, the Velodrome TVL is about $140M, placing it in the 11th rank among all DEXes in L1 and L2 chains. The platform's revenue is about to reach $10M with a linear growing trend.

$VELO Token

$VELO functions as Velodrome's native token, allowing users to lock their $VELO to earn yields and actively participate in the platform's governance. Currently trading at around $0.05, $VELO is 76% below its all-time high. This suggests that for $VELO to reach its all-time high again, it would require a 4.26-fold growth.

The current market cap of $VELO stands at $19.9M, with a one-day trading volume of $1.7M. As indicated by the data, the price of $VELO typically mirrors the TVL; therefore, the growth of Velodrome's TVL should correspond to the growth of $VELO.

Users have the option to lock their $VELO tokens for yield, and it's noteworthy that a substantial amount is locked for a two-year period.

Velodrome Changes at a Glance and Takeaways

• Overall financial metrics of Velodrome protocol reveal one-week and one-month considerable growth, particularly regarding volume.

• $VELO Token Metrics show a substantial increase in the last week and a doubling in a month.

• Swaps overview also demonstrates a remarkable increase in activities on Velodrome.

Additional Resources

• For an analytic overview of Velodrome, please refer to my Flipside dashboard (Velodrome Health Metrics).