Currently Ethereum Layer 1 does 63 million dollars in NFT volume and keep in mind this is on the layer 1 where gas costs are about 4 - 10 times higher than Optimism. I would tell you the total NFT volume on Optimism but I couldn’t even find it as we are really early. But based on my estimates it’s still well under $50,000/day.
As adoption heats up on layer 2 much of this existing NFT volume will move to Optimism.
BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW LAYER 1 VOLUME WILL MIGRATE TO OPTIMISM?
Optimism has a secret weapon under construction and the first of it’s kind. The Quixotic team is currently building the first ever NFT bridge which will enable you to move your NFTs from L1 → Optimism!
As a by product the OG NFTs already on Optimism will benefit from more eyes and volume brought in from the well established and freshly bridged Layer 1 NFTs
Optimism is all about funding public goods for the Ethereum ecosystem to facilitate user adoption and benefit the community as a whole. Instead of digging in on the specifics as most explainers do I am just tell you why you benefit in the end especially if you are early (like really early):
Right now it costs about $1 - $2 to mint an NFT on Optimism and believe it or not that cost will actually go down much more as Optimism sees more usage. This is due to the nature of all transactions on Optimism (Layer 2) being batched and settled to Ethereum Mainnet (Layer 1). I.E. the more transactions batched and settled together the lower the cost per each one of those transactions.
Finally this brings us to security - Since all transactions on Optimism (Layer 2) are settled to Ethereum (Layer 1) all transactions on Optimism inherit the security of Ethereum (Layer 1) for literally a fraction of what it would cost on the Layer 1 for the same security.
One massively underrated benefit of buying NFTs on Optimism is the actual consumer protection provided in a very subtle non-restrictive manner.
Both marketplaces (Quixotic & Optimarket) actually vet NFT projects before they list them on the marketplace! Personally as someone who has been outright rugged before I can appreciate the extra care taken here to ensure early users are not rugged the second they buy. Of course you should always DYOR but research is time consuming and when you see an NFT you like sometimes you just have to ape.