The Optimism CollectiveGovernance in Season 8: The Next Phase
Just over three years ago, the Optimism Collective embarked on a large-scale experiment in decentralized governance. From the beginning, we’ve been committed to taking “an agile approach to governance—relentlessly iterating until we establish a system which can stand the test of time.” As we experiment, we learn more about the balance of power and other dynamics within our system, an iterative process that allows the Collective to mature and evolve (see Working Constitution). Systems that are...
The Optimism CollectiveIntroducing the Optimism Collective
It’s time for a new chapter. As crypto enters its next wave of adoption, the calls for scalability are deafening. This demand is often answered by centralized layer-1 competitors, who abandon Ethereum’s security and values under the guise of cheap fees and a quick buck. We must not recreate Web2 incentives in our quest for Web3 scalability. Web3 offers the opportunity to rebuild the internet to align with the values of its users. Sacrificing this mission is sacrificing the purpose of crypto. ...
The Optimism CollectiveAnswering the call: How RISC Zero and O(1) Labs are bringing ZK proofs to the OP Stack
In Season 4 of Optimism Governance, the community rallied around Collective Intents, where teams work on tightly scoped, specific initiatives known as Missions. As part of this process, the Optimism Foundation set forth Missions for critical areas of growth and development within the Collective. A key part of building towards the Technical Decentralization Intent is implementing a Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) for the OP Stack. For OP Chains in the Superchain, this is an important ingredient to ...
Optimism is a Collective of companies, communities and citizens working together to build an internet that benefits all, and is owned by all
The Optimism CollectiveGovernance in Season 8: The Next Phase
Just over three years ago, the Optimism Collective embarked on a large-scale experiment in decentralized governance. From the beginning, we’ve been committed to taking “an agile approach to governance—relentlessly iterating until we establish a system which can stand the test of time.” As we experiment, we learn more about the balance of power and other dynamics within our system, an iterative process that allows the Collective to mature and evolve (see Working Constitution). Systems that are...
The Optimism CollectiveIntroducing the Optimism Collective
It’s time for a new chapter. As crypto enters its next wave of adoption, the calls for scalability are deafening. This demand is often answered by centralized layer-1 competitors, who abandon Ethereum’s security and values under the guise of cheap fees and a quick buck. We must not recreate Web2 incentives in our quest for Web3 scalability. Web3 offers the opportunity to rebuild the internet to align with the values of its users. Sacrificing this mission is sacrificing the purpose of crypto. ...
The Optimism CollectiveAnswering the call: How RISC Zero and O(1) Labs are bringing ZK proofs to the OP Stack
In Season 4 of Optimism Governance, the community rallied around Collective Intents, where teams work on tightly scoped, specific initiatives known as Missions. As part of this process, the Optimism Foundation set forth Missions for critical areas of growth and development within the Collective. A key part of building towards the Technical Decentralization Intent is implementing a Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) for the OP Stack. For OP Chains in the Superchain, this is an important ingredient to ...
Optimism is a Collective of companies, communities and citizens working together to build an internet that benefits all, and is owned by all
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Optimism was built to empower humanity through decentralized blockchain technology that enables unprecedented coordination of human intelligence across the globe, at scale. And there is a lot to celebrate: by our estimation, over the past two years, OP Mainnet has cumulatively saved users $2.69 billion in fees, 15.8 years of waiting for transaction confirmations, and currently secures $2.8 billion in onchain value.
But the reality is: nobody has truly scaled Ethereum. That includes us.
If Ethereum is to rival the goliaths of web2, and take software’s next bite of the world, it needs internet-level scale. No single chain today can offer that.
At the same time, a multichain world brings its own challenges. Ethereum L2s are already pushing the limits of tooling and UX, and we are nowhere near global scale. To support the next hundreds, thousands, and millions of chains, we need a paradigm shift.
The reality is–as growing brands and ecosystems look for platforms to call home, they have limited, imperfect options. Large ecosystems like Coinbase are faced with a difficult decision: they can deploy on Ethereum and forfeit scalability, choose a single L2 and be dependent on that ecosystem, or deploy and maintain their own chain and fragment liquidity and network effects.
What if we could have both the scalability of parallel chains and the composability of a single blockchain? What if all those chains shared an open source stack that prioritized decentralization, governance, security, and making constant improvements in tandem?
It’s time for Optimism to prepare for the next wave of adoption.
It’s time to build a unified network of chains, not just one.
It’s time to build together, not apart.
It’s time for Optimism to become a platform for chains.
Optimism has always been an open source project, and proudly has the most forks of any L2. But now, it’s time to double down. This isn’t just about creating many chains–it’s about uniting them into a single network.
We call the result the Superchain.
The Superchain seeks to integrate otherwise siloed L2s into a single interoperable and composable system. We need to work towards a future where launching an L2 is as straightforward as deploying a smart contract to Ethereum is today.
Lastly–and perhaps most importantly–when we build together, we win together. This is why sustaining the OP Stack codebase as a public good is critical. Speaking of…
Today, we welcome a new entrant to the Optimism ecosystem: Coinbase.
Coinbase joins as both a core developer of the OP Stack codebase, and as a new L2 blockchain built on it, called Base.
As core developers, Coinbase will join OP Labs in contributing to the mission of the Optimism Collective, extending the OP Stack’s lead as the most OverPowered public good in the game.
As a chain, Base will commit a portion of transaction fee revenue back to an Optimism Collective treasury, furthering the vision for a sustainable future where Impact = Profit.
In the near term, this collaboration strives to upgrade OP Mainnet, Base, and other L2s to an initial Superchain structure, with shared bridging and sequencing.
In the long term, the Superchain can blossom into a sprawling network which maximizes interoperability, shares decentralized protocols, and standardizes its core primitives–all while funding the public goods which enable it.
We will scale together.
If you’d like to join us, get in touch, or start contributing.
And, as always,
Stay Optimistic! 🔴✨
Optimism was built to empower humanity through decentralized blockchain technology that enables unprecedented coordination of human intelligence across the globe, at scale. And there is a lot to celebrate: by our estimation, over the past two years, OP Mainnet has cumulatively saved users $2.69 billion in fees, 15.8 years of waiting for transaction confirmations, and currently secures $2.8 billion in onchain value.
But the reality is: nobody has truly scaled Ethereum. That includes us.
If Ethereum is to rival the goliaths of web2, and take software’s next bite of the world, it needs internet-level scale. No single chain today can offer that.
At the same time, a multichain world brings its own challenges. Ethereum L2s are already pushing the limits of tooling and UX, and we are nowhere near global scale. To support the next hundreds, thousands, and millions of chains, we need a paradigm shift.
The reality is–as growing brands and ecosystems look for platforms to call home, they have limited, imperfect options. Large ecosystems like Coinbase are faced with a difficult decision: they can deploy on Ethereum and forfeit scalability, choose a single L2 and be dependent on that ecosystem, or deploy and maintain their own chain and fragment liquidity and network effects.
What if we could have both the scalability of parallel chains and the composability of a single blockchain? What if all those chains shared an open source stack that prioritized decentralization, governance, security, and making constant improvements in tandem?
It’s time for Optimism to prepare for the next wave of adoption.
It’s time to build a unified network of chains, not just one.
It’s time to build together, not apart.
It’s time for Optimism to become a platform for chains.
Optimism has always been an open source project, and proudly has the most forks of any L2. But now, it’s time to double down. This isn’t just about creating many chains–it’s about uniting them into a single network.
We call the result the Superchain.
The Superchain seeks to integrate otherwise siloed L2s into a single interoperable and composable system. We need to work towards a future where launching an L2 is as straightforward as deploying a smart contract to Ethereum is today.
Lastly–and perhaps most importantly–when we build together, we win together. This is why sustaining the OP Stack codebase as a public good is critical. Speaking of…
Today, we welcome a new entrant to the Optimism ecosystem: Coinbase.
Coinbase joins as both a core developer of the OP Stack codebase, and as a new L2 blockchain built on it, called Base.
As core developers, Coinbase will join OP Labs in contributing to the mission of the Optimism Collective, extending the OP Stack’s lead as the most OverPowered public good in the game.
As a chain, Base will commit a portion of transaction fee revenue back to an Optimism Collective treasury, furthering the vision for a sustainable future where Impact = Profit.
In the near term, this collaboration strives to upgrade OP Mainnet, Base, and other L2s to an initial Superchain structure, with shared bridging and sequencing.
In the long term, the Superchain can blossom into a sprawling network which maximizes interoperability, shares decentralized protocols, and standardizes its core primitives–all while funding the public goods which enable it.
We will scale together.
If you’d like to join us, get in touch, or start contributing.
And, as always,
Stay Optimistic! 🔴✨
1 comment
bravo