What is optimism?

What is optimism?

Optimism is Ethereum Layer 2, taking an innovative, community-first approach to growing and evolving the Ethereum landscape. It works using an “optimistic aggregation” approach that approves transactions in advance and only checks for abuse when an issue is reported.

Ryan Wyatt, former president of Polygon Labs and managing director of YouTube Gaming, is a key figure in the Optimism development team and serves as chief growth officer. Under his guidance, Optimism has transformed its ecosystem to make it more open, transparent, and collaborative, making it easier for developers and users to build and scale on Ethereum.

Optimism’s ultimate goal is to create a “superchain,” a unified network of multiple chains that work seamlessly together.

To this end, Optimism has deployed the “OP Stack,” a modular and adaptable framework that allows developers to create their own blockchains that can connect and communicate with each other, improving scalability. and cross-collaboration.

Well-known projects such as Worldcoin’s World Chain, Base Blockchain and Igloo Inc.’s Abstract Blockchain are all supported by OP Stack.

How optimism works

At the heart of Optimism is $OP, the native token of the Optimism ecosystem and at the center of its governance and operations.

$OP holders have a direct say in how the network operates, can suggest improvements to the protocol, and vote on upcoming changes. This decentralized model ensures that the community plays a vital role in the evolution of the network over time.

The governance of Optimism is managed by the Optimism Collective and has two entities: Token House and Citizens’ House.

Token House is responsible for protocol upgrades, financial approvals and other key decisions. $OP holders can vote on these decisions or grant voting rights to others if they wish.

Citizen House is an experimental governance model that focuses on retrospective public funding. Its purpose is to reward projects and efforts that contribute to the development and expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem and are motivated by the common good.

Looking ahead, Optimism’s 2024 roadmap reveals many features that focus on the connected future.

These include the Hyperchain Registry, which allows developers to view the users, configurations and code of each blockchain in the Hyperchain. Blockspace Charters are designed to improve governance, detailing upgrades for every chain controlled by Optimism Collective. After the Phase 1.5 release, more transactions will be automatically verified, reducing the need for manual interaction.

The history of optimism

In October 2019, the Optimism team published its first research paper outlining the idea and potential of Optimistic Rollups. The initial version of the Optimistic Ethereum testnet launched in June 2020, allowing budding developers to try out the technology.

The $OP token was launched via airdrop in May 2022, with 5% of the total supply distributed to eligible users. Further airdrops are also coming, with 19% of the total supply earmarked for this purpose.

Optimism made a major update to the mainnet in December 2022, enabling the blockchain to verify transactions without permission, making operations more secure and decentralized.

In 2023, Optimism cooperated with several major blockchain projects. These include Circle bringing USDC to Optimism, Coinbase creating the BASE network, Binance launching the opBNB layer 2 blockchain, and decentralized finance (DeFi) credit market Clearpool expanding into Optimism’s OP mainnet

Over time, the team continues to improve its Optimistic Rollup technology, making transactions more reliable and cheaper to execute.

Optimism is becoming a key player in the future of Ethereum.

Want more? Connect NFT Square

Join the weekly newsletter
Join our Telegram group
Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook

*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are based on the personal research and experience of our website moderators and are provided for informational purposes only. Individuals must fully research any product before making any type of investment.

Since 2012, riding the wave of cryptocurrency, bridging the digital and physical worlds through prose.