Optimism's Superchain Strategy

The Dencun upgrade resulted in a significant improvement for the rollup experience, where transaction fees dropped significantly, thanks to EIP-4844, which introduces data blobs as a solution for L2s to post transactions to Ethereum mainnet. Despite these advancements, both ARB and OP have failed to accrue value when compared to a basket of L1s, BTC, or ETH, but this may be by design - ARB and OP both serve as powerful incentives to cultivate strong development activity. While Arbitrum still is the largest rollup by TVL, Optimism has increasingly captured a significant portion of the market sector, evidenced through the planning, launch, and maturation of several OP Stack chains, including Base, Fractal, Mode, Redstone, Worldcoin, and Zora. Several novel applications in the Superchain ecosystem have garnered significant adoption when compared to traditional crypto dApps. Optimism’s recent foray into L3s presents the opportunity for the rollup to compete further with Arbitrum’s Nitro L3s. 

The Superchain Explained

OP Mainnet is the first L2 chain launched utilizing the Optimism framework, but it is not inherently the “Optimism” rollup. Instead, the Optimism Collective aims to provide a codebase that any team of developers can use to launch a rollup. This introduces the concept of the “Superchain,” which is essentially an aligned ecosystem of multiple L2s that utilize the OP Stack. Fundamentally, this means that each rollup in the Superchain shares the same canonical bridge and gains access to the same core software stack. An upgrade to the OP Stack itself can be adopted by every chain in the ecosystem, which was the case with the Optimism Bedrock Upgrade in June 2023. The Superchain is governed by OP holders and the Law of Chains, which is a document that outlines a shared commitment to open, decentralized blockspace across all OP Stack chains. The Law of Chains establishes criteria for security, upgrades, and transaction ordering to synergistically ensure neutrality for all stakeholders in the Optimism ecosystem.

The end goal for the Superchain is to foster a self-sustaining open source community of builders that works together to create the best user experience for a decentralized, scalable internet, where OP Stack chains are seamlessly interoperable in the future. Several contributions to the OP Stack from Base, Redstone, and Worldcoin have brought that vision closer to fruition, ranging from advancement in fault proofs to the integration of Pessimism, a monitoring stack to assist with OP Stack safety. Chains that elect to abide by the Law of Chains commit the greater of either 2.5% of total sequencer revenue or 15% of profit made after transaction submission to the Optimism Collective. This model creates a flywheel, where increased demand for Superchain blockspace generates sequencer revenue that can then be distributed via Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) to transmit value to both users and developers in the Superchain ecosystem. 

A Brief Overview of the Superchain Ecosystem

The OP Stack is constantly evolving, and developers can contribute new modules to the OP Stack for all builders to use. To date, there are 14 networks in the Superchain ecosystem. By joining the ecosystem, developers gain access to OP Stack-wide upgrades, security and incident response management, pre-deployed infrastructure (block explorers, bridges, oracles, etc.), RPGF funding, and wide distribution to users. Each network shares a canonical bridge with the main OP rollup but utilizes its own sequencer. The OP Stack encourages innovation by providing all the fundamental components of a rollup for developers to modify and ultimately contribute back to the framework. Perhaps one of the strongest advantages of utilizing the OP Stack is the ability to widely distribute products to an active community of users, as evidenced by strong adoption metrics across several chains, including Base and Zora.