What is Superchain? Superchain is a long-term vision and new strategy shared by Optimism Collective over time. So, everyone, let’s find out what’s interesting about Optimism Superchain in the article below.
To better understand Optimism Superchain, people can refer to some of the articles below:
- What is Layer 2? Complete Guide to Layer 2 Solutions
- What is Optimism (OP)? Overview of Cryptocurrency Optimism
Superchain Overview
Context to create Superchain vision
During the development process until the first successful steps, many events took place that made the Optimism team have their first thoughts about Superchain such as:
- The team, after a lot of ineffective time developing Layer 2 based on Plasma, was later forced to change to the Rollup model. Even switching to Rollup their Optimism build process was extremely difficult.
- During the development process, a developer named Geohot assisted Optimism in converting a 6,000 line long code that the Optimism team had to work on for many months down to only 300 lines in just a few short days. Since then, simplicity has become the working principle of Optimism.
- In 2021, OVM was phased out, a difficult decision for the team to move to a modular approach to implementation and proofing. As a result, EVM Equivalence is available on the Optimism network.
Obviously, Optimism’s journey is not easy and she has many obstacles. That’s why OP Stack was born, leading to the birth of Superchain.
What is OP Stack, Superchain?
With OP Stack, any individual or organization can easily build a Layer 2 platform on Ethereum. It can be simply understood that OP Stack is a set of SDKs.
In the photo above are the main parts in the operating model and constituting a Layer 2 such as:
- Layer 1
- Settlement Layer: Authentication layer
- Execution Layer: Execution layer
- Consensus Layer: Consensus layer
White modules will be updated with Ethereum network updates, but otherwise developers can choose existing module classes such as choosing Layer 2 solutions other than Rollup, choosing ZKP instead Because of Fault Proof, choose Celestia for Layer 1 instead of Ethereum or even use the Bitcoin network as the Execution Layer. In more detail, what is Superchain?
Interaction between OP chains in Superchain
Layer 2s using OP Stack will be called Op-chains. And by synthesizing many Op-chains, we will have Superchain. According to Optimism, they do not build a single blockchain, but Optimism builds a Digital Society. Obviously, if the vision is a Digital Society, it is clear that Op-chains must interact with each other:
- Op-chains can message and interact with each other, which can be the foundation for building omnichain between OP chains.
- OP Stack allows freedom in passing the Sequencer. However, if Op-chains share a common Sequencer Set, it makes Cross-chain interaction easier, faster and less risky. Projects can register to use Set Sequencer within the Optimism Collective.
It can be said that projects using a common Set Sequencer are considered a Superchain. In the development goal, Superchain will be focused after Bedrock is successful.
The first pieces that make up the Superchain
Base is the first Blockchain built on OP Stack and participates in Optimism’s Superchain. Coinbase will join forces with OP Labs to contribute and build a strong Optimism Collective to make OP Stack the most popular SDK in the crypto market. Besides, Base also provides a portion of transaction fees back to Optimism Collective.
Superchain’s ecosystem is expanding strongly with many names including:
- Layer 1: Celo, Fantom, Polygon,…
- CeFi: Magi – A16Z, Base, opBNB
- DApp & Protocol: Zora, Aevo, DeBank, Frax Finance, Lyra Finance, Lattice, Kinto,…
Advantages, Disadvantages & Differences of Superchain
Some advantages of Superchain
- Because it is built as Layer 2, transaction speed and transaction fees will be much cheaper while still inheriting the security from Layer 1, Ethereum.
- Supports a variety of developers’ needs from independent blockchains to decentralized applications that specialize in certain fields such as Trading, NFT, Gaming,…
- Inheriting upgrades from Optimism. This means that the development team only needs to focus on technical product development. If they choose an API from Optimism, they will be supported by Optimism.
- OP Stack has really been simplified a lot after the Bedrock update, making the process of building a Layer 2 simpler, saving and optimizing developer effort.
Some disadvantages of Superchain
- Depending on Optimism’s technology, if you choose an API from Optimism, if Optimism upgrades slowly like Bedrock recently delayed for nearly a year, the project will have to accept it.
- Superchain is still only on paper and has not really been deployed, so the feasibility of Superchain cannot be confirmed.
- Mostly, the big teams in the market seem to prefer zkRollup or build their own Layer 1 rather than Optimistic Rollup although with OP Stack they could go in the zkRollup direction.
- There have been no moves to capture value clearly for the OP. If you’re not careful, you’ll fall into the same trap as ATOM – the native token of Cosmos.
The Future of Superchain
OP Stack is just the beginning for a Superchain future. Remember that OP Stack and Superchain will only be focused after Bedrock succeeds and Bedrock succeeds on June 7, 2023, so the future of Superchain is still very difficult to say. However, with OP Labs’ proven experience, we can partly trust it (but don’t forget that Bedrock was delayed 1 year compared to expected).
Besides, Base is just the first blockchain to participate in Superchain, but the benefits that Base brings to Optimism Collective only stop at Base’s “voluntary” nature. Perhaps Optimism should add conditions for Optimism. Collective every time a new project joins Superchain. The idea of sharing revenue from transaction fees is a good idea.
Perhaps we need more time to observe the operations, operations and development of OP Labs before making more in-depth assessments.
Summary
Superchain is a different vision of Optimism compared to its competitor Arbitrum. Can Superchain win over an Arbitrum ecosystem? What are everyone’s opinions? Hopefully through this article everyone can understand more about what Superchain is?
