Optimism

Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling solution developed by the Optimism Foundation to promote growth and sustainability of public goods [1]. The open Mainnet launch was in December 2021. In spring 2022 Optimism reached a max of over $700m in TVL, current numbers can be found here [2].

How does Optimism work?

As Arbitrum, Optimism is using optimistic rollups to batch single transactions and then these rollups are submitted to the Ethereum Mainchain. "Unless a user submits their transaction directly to the Canonical Transaction Chain, new blocks are produced by something called a sequencer. This sequencer instantly confirms valid transactions, then creates and executes blocks on Optimism’s layer 2—a blockchain that sits atop the L1 blockchain, in this case Ethereum." [3]

The High Level Architecture of Optimism can be found here [4]:

Contract OverviewOptimism Docs

How to use Optimism?

As Optimism is EVM-compatible, it is possible to use the chain directly through a decentralized application like Aave, or Uniswap. Nevertheless, you need to move funds to the Optimism network first, either by using the Optimism bridge or a third party solution.

Chain Info

The core information about the Optimism chain can be derived from the Optimism Docs[5]:

Name: Optimism

ChainID: 10

Public RPC Endpoints:

HTTP endpoint: https://mainnet.optimism.io/
WebSocket: wss://ws-mainnet.optimism.io/
Infura: https://optimism-mainnet.infura.io/v3/<Infura Project ID>
Alchemy: https://opt-mainnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/your-api-key

Canonical Transaction Chain: 0x5E4e65926BA27467555EB562121fac00D24E9dD2

Risk Summary

Our friends from L2beat offer a great summary of the associated risks of the Optimism project [2]:

Funds can be stolen, if...

an invalid state root is submitted to the system (CRITICAL),
a contract receives a malicious code upgrade. There is no delay on code upgrades (CRITICAL).

Funds can be frozen, if...

the centralized validator goes down. Users cannot produce blocks themselves and exiting the system requires new block production (CRITICAL).

MEV can be extracted if…

the operator exploits their centralized position and frontruns user transactions.

The Optimism Token

Optimism announced their Token end of April 2022 but as well introduced a new model of governance for the protocol. Instead of only having one governance token, there will be two co-equal chambers, namely the Token House and the Citizens´House [6]:

The airdrop announcement for OP-Token is only for the Token House, while there will be an additional airdrop for the Citizen`s House in form of so-called soulbound NFTs, that are not transferable.

To check your airdrop eligibility, please visit this site.