Systems that are rigidly defined and slow to change struggle to adapt to changing conditions and often stagnate, losing to faster competitors or failing to innovate. Instead, Optimism governance strives to self-destruct, repeatedly, allowing the Collective to adapt, innovate, and continuously evolve as an agile governance system built to last.

Just as we periodically update the OP Stack to ensure the Superchain benefits from the latest and greatest technology, it’s time to update the governance system so that the Collective benefits from best-in-class decision making protocols. We’re excited to introduce several important governance updates that leverage time-tested concepts from traditional political science and corporate governance, combined with three years of cutting edge, practical learnings. Thanks to all of our governance participants for your willingness to experiment and iterate, without which the next phase of Optimism Governance would not be possible.

The Purpose of Optimism Governance

Over the past three years, Optimism governance has evolved from a group of tokenholders bootstrapping OP Mainnet to a large scale Collective collaboratively executing on the Superchain Vision. During this period, through many conversations with governance participants and major partners, we’ve refined our understanding of the role Optimism governance plays in this vision.

💡 The purpose of Optimism governance is to reduce platform risk for the Collective's stakeholders.

Platform risk is the risk to a business or user that a platform they depend on changes against their interests. It is a common risk of Web 2 platforms and is a key consideration for the largest partners building on the OP Stack.

So how does Optimism governance reduce this risk for businesses and end-users of the Superchain?

Platform risk exists largely due to a lack of accountability. Corporate governance models are primarily accountable to the largest financial interests. Decisions that disadvantage businesses or users are often made in the name of “maximizing shareholder value.” Once platforms achieve market dominance (or monopoly), it is very difficult for businesses or users to actually exit from those platforms as their leverage is limited and viable alternatives may not exist.

Below, we outline an update to Optimism Governance aimed at further reducing platform risk for the major stakeholders of the Superchain. This update includes several core concepts:

• Stakeholder Voting: Empowering the stakeholders of the Collective ensures governance is accountable, and not just to financial interests

  • A Public Definition of Citizenship: Stakeholder voting relies on a verifiable, objective, and scalable definition of Citizenship - a major milestone towards decentralization

• Governance Minimized Decision Making: Optimistic approvals allow us to lower the barriers to participation for important stakeholders while maintaining accountability

Stakeholder Voting

Season 8 takes steps to ensure governance is accountable to all major stakeholders of the Collective, not just financial ones (a key weakness of traditional corporate and crypto governance models). The goal is to reduce the platform risk that any one stakeholder dominates decision making at the expense of others.

How do we define being a stakeholder of the Collective?

Stakeholders contribute to shared resources and are directly impacted by governance decisions. Specifically, they are directly affected by protocol upgrades, contribute to the Collective treasury, and/or bear the cost of Collective economic decisions.

This is consistent with Elinor Ostrom’s framework for Governing the Commons which suggests that “Individuals or groups who have a legitimate interest or claim in the use, management, and sustainability of a common-pool resource” should be the ones to govern those resources.

This definition allows us to identify four key stakeholder groups to which the platform should be accountable:

• Tokenholders: Tokenholders share directly in the cost of economic decisions.

  • Please note that tokenholders are distinct from “delegates” as delegates may accumulate voting power without any direct tokenholdings or skin-in-the-game. The system should continue to increase the presence of tokenholders (self-delegated) and reduce the presence of non-or-low tokenholder delegates. In Season 8, we will run several experiments aimed at shifting voting power towards direct tokenholders.

• End-users: End-users contribute revenue to the Collective by paying gas fees on the Superchain. They are affected by protocol changes that impact transaction costs, user experience, security, and application availability. Their representation in governance ensures the Superchain remains optimized for those who use it daily.

• Apps: Applications running on the Superchain contribute Collective revenue in the form of gas fees on their smart contract transactions. They have built their business on the Superchain's reliability, performance, and feature set. Their participation ensures Collective decisions support the interests of the ecosystem's application layer.

• Chains: Superchain members contribute a share of their revenue to the Collective. They are fundamentally dependent on protocol changes, as their entire infrastructure relies on the core protocol's security, performance, and other features. Their participation ensures protocol development aligns with the needs of the diverse chains that make up the Superchain ecosystem.

⚠️ The key stakeholders of the Collective are the parties to which governance should be accountable (expressed via voting rights). That does not mean these are the only stakeholders that have influence within the governance system.

For example, the Core Development Program is enormously influential to the development of the Superchain. This influence is expressed by authoring protocol upgrade proposals, rather than voting on them. The voting process exists to create accountability for the core development program.

Contributors that are actively creating impact for the Superchain will still be eligible for Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro Funding) and other incentive programs.

A Public Definition of Citizenship

Identifying the above stakeholder groups, allows us to arrive at a public definition of Citizenship, a major milestones in our path towards decentralization!

Over the course of the past three years, we’ve experimented with many different models of Citizenship. We’d like to thank all Citizens and Guest Voters who participated in these experiments throughout previous Seasons. The invaluable learnings from these experiments have enabled us to establish a transparent, public definition of Citizenship. This milestone is particularly significant as it creates objective criteria that can be verified onchain and ultimately maintained by governance itself—representing a crucial advancement in our journey toward decentralization!

In Season 8, the Citizens’ House will be sub-divided into three categories:

❗️ Citizenship remains an experiment and, as always, Citizenship in one Season does not guarantee Citizenship in future Seasons.

• End-users: Engaged Superchain end-users that meet a specific threshold of sustained activity on the Superchain and have a valid proof-of-personhood (Passport or World Id). Up to 1000 Citizens may register in this category. See here for more details.

  • Based on learnings in Round 6 (see here), we have moved away from evaluating users based on abstract “values”, and instead define the category based on the quantifiable stake they have in the continued success of the Superchain. Therefore, this group may include users of the Superchain that could be considered mercenary. If the group becomes overly skewed towards specific sub-populations, strategies may be taken to form a more representative set of users in future Seasons.

  • Existing Citizens are most likely to fall into this sub-category of the Citizens House. However, if they do not meet the required activity threshold, they will not continue to be Citizens in Season 8.

• Apps: Top Superchain applications based on the gas usage of their smart contracts in the past Season. A minimum of 100 apps will be eligible in this category. See here for more details.

  • Unlike in past experiments, builders of developer and other kinds of tooling are not included in this definition. Onchain apps are contributing to Collective resources and dependent on the protocol in a direct way that other types of builders are not.

  • However, builders that don’t meet this definition but still contribute meaningfully to the Collective, may be rewarded with Retro Funding in the OP Token, enabling them to use their voting power in the Token House.

• Chains: Top chains based on the revenue contribution made to the Collective from revenue share in the past Season. A minimum of 15 chains will be eligible in this category. See here for more details.

  • Both apps and chains are eligible to become Citizens, voting in the interests of the organization. In Season 7, we were surprised to see indications that team members of organizations and onchain apps used their votes to represent their own interests rather than the organization’s interests. To avoid any ambiguity, In Season 8, apps and chains will be able to vote on behalf of their organization in the Citizens’ House. If an organization qualifies as both an app and a chain, they will be classified as a chain (will not be represented in both groups).

  • While this is a departure from the assumption that Citizens are humans, it remains true to the original principle of 1-member, 1-vote.

This is still a two-house governance system

Tokenholders will continue to be represented as a key stakeholder group via a token-weighted voting model in the Token House. Just as the Token House will continue to operate as usual, so will the Citizens’ House. The only difference is that the Citizens’ House will now be subdivided into three stakeholder groups.

Importantly, this sub-division isn’t about reducing any one stakeholder’s power— quite the opposite! It’s about representing all impacted stakeholders in a balanced way. This design is informed by academic research (e.g., Steinsson 2025, Bueno de Mesquita 2024, Smith and Hall 2022, Landemore 2020, Hirschman 1972), and conversations with experts and practitioners in political science and corporate governance.

While membership in the Token House and Citizens’ House can overlap, each House is designed to balance power in different ways. The Citizens’ House uses a ‘1 member, 1 vote’ model, which gives greater relative influence to the mid- and long-tail participants compared to the Token House’s token-weighted voting.

As with everything, this is an experiment, and over the next few seasons, the Foundation will continue to iterate on the specifics of implementation (definitions, voting thresholds, overlap, etc.) based on practical learnings.

Governance Minimized Decision Making

In order for all stakeholders to hold the system accountable, we need to reduce the burden of participating in governance. Participating in governance should not require spending hours reading forum posts and navigating complex bureaucracy. Being a governance participant should not be a full time, or part time, job. Instead, Optimism governance should be easy enough to interact with that even our busiest stakeholders can provide high leverage inputs as needed.

Stakeholders want the platform to make decisions they are aligned with but that doesn’t necessitate that they participate in making those decisions themselves

Nobody should have to be a politician to participate and all stakeholders should be able to ensure the system reflects the values that are most important to them.

Optimistic Approvals

Optimism has never taken a one-size-fits-all approach to governance. Instead, we approach each governance question as a decision module with unique properties.

Each decision module is designed with the following principles in mind:

• Minimize governance overhead: Stakeholders should only be asked to actively make a decision when their buy-in is essential to implementation. In all other cases, they should be able to disagree with a decision but will not be asked to make the decision themselves.

• Optimize for expertise: When a decision does need to be actively made, the most knowledgeable parties should be entrusted with making those decisions.

• Maximize accountability: Those impacted by a decision should be able to veto or override a decision that directly impacts them.

This means many decision modules will leverage optimistic approvals. Optimistic approval assumes a vote is passed unless stakeholders explicitly reject it. Optimistic approvals lower platform risk in three major ways:

• They reduce the burden of participation for busy, but high context, stakeholders

• They ensure accountability by allowing stakeholders to reject a decision they disagree with

• They increase the operational efficiency of the Collective, increasing our ability to remain competitive

Here is how this approach will be implemented in Season 8:

Optimistic Approvals

• Resource Allocation Modules (Mission Budgets)

  • Who proposes? The Budget Board will be entrusted to propose budgets for token allocations. Given their expertise (or the accuracy of the infrastructure they bootstrap for the Collective), the Collective can defer to their decisions. However, each stakeholder group will retain a veto if they believe budget proposals unfairly disadvantage their stakeholder group.

  • Who approves? Nobody, it’s optistimically approved!

  • Who can veto? Any of the four stakeholder groups represented in the Token House and Citizens' House may veto a decision they’re impacted by if they believe a proposal unfairly disadvantage their stakeholder group.

  • Full details here

• Protocol Upgrade Modules

  • Please note this new process will go into effect on August 1st

  • Who proposes? Core Devs

  • Who approves? Approval of Protocol Upgrades will be delegated to an independent Developer Advisory Board, which acts on behalf of both the Token House and the Citizens’ House. The Developer Advisory Board will vote on all protocol upgrades (or veto maintenance upgrades) based on technical merit (see here for our learnings on technical expert voters here.)

  • Who can veto? Any of the four stakeholder groups represented in the Token House and Citizens’ House may veto a DAB approval if they believe a proposal unfairly disadvantage their stakeholder group.

  • Full details here

• Economic Decision Modules

  • Modules B, C, D, and E (treasury management and economic parameters) will be the focus on Seasons 10 & 11

Dynamic Vetos

Joint House optimistic approvals will leverage dynamic veto thresholds, in which thresholds are adjusted lower as consensus among stakeholders increases. This is a mechanism to reduce gridlock, creating bridging incentives for stakeholder groups to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes rather than act unilaterally. If a proposal is veto’d, it will proceed to an appeals process. Full details here.

Active Voting

The following decisions will continue to require active approval, as they require a high level of buy-in among participants for implementation:

• Collective Intent Ratification (Token House and Citizens’ House)

• Elections (Token House and/or Citizens’ House)

• DAO Operating Budget (Token House)

• Council and Board Budgets (Token House)

Full details about optimistic approvals, dynamic vetos, and the appeals process, can be found here.

Decentralization Without Introducing Platform Risk

As the Collective decentralizes, we must consider that there are ways to decentralize that actually increase platform risk. We remain committed to decentralization in so much as it also reduces platform risk. Accordingly, we’ve updated our thinking on our decentralization milestones to reflect this very important nuance.

✳️ For example: Consider a GitHub repository where push access is open to all. This is decentralized, but has extremely high platform risk.

Now consider a Github repository where push access is limited to a small, group of core development maintainers, and contributions are publicly managed through pull requests. This isn’t as centralized as a private repo owned by one devco, which would present platform risk. However, it is less decentralized than a completely open repo. The repo described introduces decentralization without also introducing platform risk, which is the Collective’s goal.

With this in mind, we will continue to make progress towards a refined set of Decentralization Milestones in S8.

Optimistic About the Next Phase ✨

Season 8 introduces a momentous update to the Collective’s governance system, reflecting a new level of maturity. This update refines involvement for those most impacted by governance decisions, shifts the focus from short-term incentives to long-term sustainability, and minimizes the governance surface area while making progress towards decentralization in so much as it reduces platform risk.

The goal has always been to create a governance model designed for a new internet; now we understand that means lowering platform risk by creating accountability where corporate governance models have failed to do so.

We could have only arrived at this stage of maturity with the help of all the contributors that dared to experiment with us over the past three years. As always, we will move forward as a Collective. Here’s to the next phase ✨

Want to dive deeper?

Check out the full Guide to Season 8, Operating Manual, and our FAQ on Citizenship.

Included in this upgrade is Base, Ink, OP Mainnet, Soneium, Unichain, and several other OP Stack chains. The Superchain powered nearly 70% of all L2 activity in April (measured by transaction fees), and every OP Chain in the Superchain contributes revenue back to the Optimism Collective in exchange for shared governance, security and upgrades - Pectra being a prime example.

The OP Stack has become a standard for L2 infrastructure, supporting 12.3 million daily transactions in April. Its open source, MIT-licensed architecture supports innovation and flexibility, and allows for shared upgrades to quickly activate across a vast and growing ecosystem of chains.

The OP Stack’s core design principles prioritize EVM equivalence and minimal code difference from Ethereum L1 execution clients, enabling Optimism to easily upstream new features and functionality released on L1. The stack stays almost identical to Ethereum, so every core upgrade flows straight into the Superchain, not months later.

Only with the OP Stack can L2 developers and users now immediately benefit from Ethereum’s improvements, just 48 hours after launch.

Pectra’s big unlocks for the Superchain

Blockchains are growing, and with greater adoption comes scaling issues and high transaction costs. Thanks to Pectra, OP Stack chains benefit from blob scaling and decreased fees. Pectra’s EIP-7702 brings account abstraction to life with significant UX improvements, benefitting users as adoption continues to accelerate.

It’s not just L2 chains that benefit from Pectra: 7702 in particular is a big unlock for Superchain apps, too. Smart wallet functionality is now available for all existing app users, simplifying multichain transactions and essentially creating a one-click trading experience. We expect DeFi apps across the Superchain to quickly adopt this, driving more activity by removing friction.

Ethereum’s Superchain: Looking ahead to further scale

While Pectra introduced significant improvements to the Ethereum network, there’s more work to be done. Scalability remains Ethereum’s most critical challenge, and L2s fundamentally need more scale. With current growth trajectories, even with Pectra’s 2x blob increase, L2s need a 5-8x increase in blob capacity for blobs to remain uncongested. Developers at OP Labs have proposed a solution through Blob-Parameter Only (BPO) forks.

We’re excited to further tackle this challenge through the upcoming Fusaka upgrade. Optimism has dedicated engineering resources to support PeerDAS, with the goal of driving stronger network reliability and scalability.

We continue to proudly support Ethereum as it evolves, and we’re building Ethereum’s Superchain to scale with it.

Join us in building with the OP Stack as part of the Superchain:

• Deploy a chain or app

• Build interoperable apps on Superchain devnet

• Apply for Retroactive Public Goods Funding: Onchain Builders

• Apply for a grant to cover your Superchain app audit

The OP Stack was built to support innovation. It gives teams the flexibility to try new proof systems, customize data availability, and explore alternative approaches to governance and economics. That openness is by design. We believe the fastest way to innovate is by building in the open, making our work free to use, fork, and improve. As a result, we are seeing an incredible range of teams use the OP Stack in different ways—from consumer-focused apps to ZK research to institutional infrastructure. Through the over 850 million OP tokens allocated towards ecosystem support through Retro Funding, the Optimism Collective has supported teams like O(1), Risc0, and Succinct to bring that vision closer to reality. Because of efforts like these, the OP Stack became ZK-ready in early 2023. Although these systems are still maturing, they are already pushing the possibilities of the OP Stack in exciting directions.

Today, Conduit is introducing a new path for teams to launch OP Stack chains that connect to the AggLayer. It confirms what we’re already seeing today: The OP Stack is becoming the default foundation for new chains, regardless of the ecosystem’s go-to-market approach. While these new models may appeal to teams looking to experiment with new architectures, the Superchain remains focused on building Stage 1 rollups with shared upgrades, credible neutrality, and interoperability. As innovation with the OP Stack continues across the ecosystem, we look forward to upstreaming the most promising advances, like ZK proofs, into the Superchain over time.

The Superchain remains the most credible and battle-tested path for teams building serious, long-term chain solutions. At the same time, continued open experimentation across the OP Stack strengthens the broader ecosystem. Together, this creates a powerful dynamic that is driving the OP Stack to become the shared standard for scaling Ethereum.

While the OP Stack has made it easier than ever to launch new chains, we agree with what many in the ecosystem are saying — the real opportunity right now is not just more chains, but more great apps. Beyond just more ways to launch an OP Stack chain, we’re excited for apps that use crypto as a tool to solve real-world problems, not just apps built for crypto. With native interoperability, shared liquidity, and seamless user experiences across chains, the Superchain will unlock new kinds of applications that simply aren't possible anywhere else.

That’s where we believe the next wave of value will come from, and we’re focused on supporting the people who are ready to innovate.

Nerdsniped on the Superchain? Come help build it.

• Retro Funding Onchain Builders rewards projects that drive cross-chain asset transfers, enabled through interop, by growing the Superchain across eligible OP Chains. Dev Tooling rewards toolchain software, such as compilers, libraries and debuggers, that support builders in developing onchain applications on the Superchain.

• Build interoperable apps on Superchain devnet

• 

  Velodrome

  @VelodromeFi

  

  Native interop will power:
  
  Superswaps: cross-chain trades in seconds.
  No bridging. No headaches. Low cost.
  
  Unified UX: improved voting + rewards.
  Seamless experience. Universal + scalable.

  22

  11:35 AM • May 1, 2025

• Building a Superchain app? Apply for a grant to cover your audit

Throughout the summer, we’ll unveil new Superchain native apps, showcase the interop set in action, and launch new rewards opportunities for developers. The pace of innovation is accelerating, and the Superchain is where it’s all coming together.

However, infrastructure alone is not enough. We need new ways to reward those who participate in this shared network. Systems that recognize contribution not to a single app or chain, but to the whole.

The Superchain is about building for the long haul, and experimenting, iterating, and learning along the way. That’s why we’re introducing SuperStacks: a pilot points program testing a more proactive and intentional approach to ecosystem rewards that moves beyond traditionally siloed incentives.

SuperStacks aims to reward behavior around interoperable assets and applications that work seamlessly across multiple chains. The program is specifically designed to prepare the ecosystem for the upcoming interoperability launch by accelerating development of apps and use cases that will thrive in an interoperable Superchain. It will generate insights that help evolve this program into a long-term engine for ecosystem growth.

An experiment in Superchain-wide incentives

SuperStacks is an experiment in refining incentive design across the Superchain. The pilot will run from April 16 to June 30, 2025 and reward DeFi users with points for participating in liquidity pools focused on interoperable assets. Participants can earn points based on factors like liquidity provisioned, duration of participation, and other criteria designed to encourage sustained engagement.

The SuperStacks pilot was designed with several key concepts in mind: to create a program that feels familiar to DeFi users, establishes a unified source of truth for Superchain opportunities, and includes purpose-built incentives to support Superchain interoperability. The goal is to introduce a scalable campaign that can evolve based on direct community feedback.

The program will start with a set of designated pools across trusted protocols in the Superchain and will grow and change to include many others throughout. A list of participating pools and rewards structures is available on the SuperStacks program website.

The program’s Superchain-wide focus also creates unique opportunities for participating protocols and chains to supplement the base incentives with their own supplementary rewards for the same pools - multiplying the benefits for users while maintaining a unified, coordinated approach.

SuperStacks is designed to support long-term growth, but it’s still an experiment. Participation does not guarantee future rewards beyond the ability to earn points. Earning points does not guarantee earning OP tokens or any other reward. The program’s design, eligibility criteria and rewards structure will likely evolve over time based on collected data and community feedback.

By testing this incentive model in a measured, transparent way, we’re excited to explore what’s possible with a thoughtfully designed points program. This pilot gives us a unique chance to learn, adapt and ultimately build a more sustainable, aligned incentive program–one that can grow along the Superchain and help shape the future of onchain participation.

Boosting Superchain Growth

SuperStacks is just the beginning. The pilot builds on everything we’ve learned from previous airdrops and other rewards programs, and starts building something even better. By mobilizing proactive, targeted incentives that support the kinds of liquidity and participation that will matter most when Superchain interoperability is fully live, SuperStacks lays the groundwork for a thriving, connected ecosystem.

If this program is successful, it could become a foundation for a long-term incentive program across the Superchain – helping applications grow, users stay engaged, and chains benefit from shared network effects. This experiment will help determine how to direct incentives effectively in the long run. We’re excited to learn, improve, and build toward a resilient, high-impact Superchain. Check out full program details and participating protocols here.

Leading this charge is USDT0, the omnichain version of USDT that is natively compatible across chains while remaining backed 1:1 by USDT on Ethereum. USDT0 is now live on OP Mainnet and Ink with more chains to come – enabling fast, secure, and cost-efficient cross-chain transfers across the Superchain. By bringing Tether’s USDT to widely adopted chains, USDT0 expands the reach of the world’s leading stablecoin across one of the world’s fastest-growing onchain ecosystems.

This is just the start. USDT0 will soon expand to additional chains, tapping into the Superchain’s growing distribution network. We're delighted that asset issuers are tokenizing on the Superchain to benefit from access to users and developers, and USDT0’s native omnichain liquidity layer will accelerate growth across multiple sectors.

The Superchain is built for interoperable assets to thrive

The Superchain is rapidly emerging as a safe, secure, and interconnected network for liquidity, applications, and users. Today, OP Chains represent half of all Ethereum L2 transactions, with 30+ world-class chains including Base, Ink, Mode, OP Mainnet, Soneium, Swell, Unichain, World Chain, and Zora, all aligned through shared security, standards, and incentives.

As Superchain interoperability rolls out, assets like USDT0 will tap into native Superchain interop, allowing for frictionless movement between OP Chains, with 1-block finality, zero slippage, and a unified security model. This creates the ideal foundation for DeFi growth, where capital can move freely, applications can scale, and users can transact without barriers.

USDT0 is one of the first to deploy an interop-ready stablecoin to the Superchain, and we’re pushing the industry past fragmented cross-chain liquidity towards a more unified, native liquidity layer.

The network effect of the Superchain is taking shape

As our roadmap for Superchain interop comes to life, asset issuers have an unparalleled opportunity to reach more and more developers and end-users across a scalable, multichain ecosystem.

Deploying interop-ready assets isn’t just about launching a token—it’s about positioning for the future of onchain liquidity. With USDT0 now live, we anticipate more top-tier assets, applications, and partners will quickly join the Superchain, accelerating its evolution into the most interconnected ecosystem for decentralized finance.

Now is the time to build. Learn how to launch interop-ready assets on the Superchain.

Disclaimer: USDT0 is not developed by OP Labs or The Optimism Foundation.

Optimism is Ethereum

Optimism remains firmly committed to its mission of building the user-owned internet, with Ethereum at its core. What began as OP Mainnet – a single L2 chain designed to scale Ethereum's technology and values – has evolved into something far greater. Optimism is now home to the Superchain, a network of blockchains built on a shared standard codebase called the OP Stack. Together, these OP Chains are working to scale Ethereum.

The Superchain’s remarkable growth

In 2024, the Superchain ecosystem expanded beyond its wildest dreams. The Superchain isn’t just growing; it’s thriving. More people are using it, more apps are launching, and the ecosystem is becoming more sustainable with every passing day:

• 30+ OP Chains, with major players like Kraken (Ink), Sony (Soneium), Uniswap (Unichain), and World (World Chain) joining the ecosystem, alongside early pioneers like Base, Metal, Mode, and Zora.

• Nearly 50% of all L2 transactions on Ethereum are now powered by the Superchain ecosystem, demonstrating its ability to handle internet-scale usage.

• Total value locked in apps grew from $1.4B in December 2023 to $4.8B in December 2024.

• 319 apps are live on the Superchain, with 145 of them launched in 2024 alone.

• Daily transactions skyrocketed from 650K in December 2023 to 11.1M in December 2024 – a staggering 1600% increase.

Scaling Ethereum with the OP Stack

The OP Stack – the MIT-licensed, open-source development stack behind the Superchain ecosystem – made significant progress in 2024 through the dedication of its core contributors.

Fault proofs & Stage 1 decentralization

The year marked the launch of permissionless fault proofs, paving the way for OP Stack Chains to achieve Stage 1 decentralization. OP Mainnet successfully reached this milestone, while contributors began working to support multiple proofs and Stage 2 decentralization:

• Kona, a new Rust-based fault proof system is live on OP Sepolia, driven by the OP Labs team, the Reth team at Ithaca, and Sunnyside Labs.

• Succinct Labs released op-succinct, a ZK-powered validity rollup framework based on the OP Stack and Kona.

• RISC Zero released Kailua, a hybrid ZK-fault proof system also based on Kailua.

Advancements in Interoperability

Superchain and Ethereum-wide interoperability became a core focus in 2024. The vision for Superchain Interop materialized through Devnet Stable and the updated Dev Console, which provided developers with essential tools like Supersim, the SuperchainERC20 starter kit, and a multi-chain faucet to start experimenting with Superchain Interop from day one.

On the Ethereum-wide interop front, Optimism has emerged as a key driver in fostering community collaboration. At the Ethereum Interop Forum, the entire Ethereum community united to establish a shared goal and align on the next steps to make Ethereum truly interoperable. Optimism strengthened its commitment to ERC-7683 to deliver a unified Ethereum UX, while also developing ERC-7802 for cross-chain token interfaces.

More from core contributors

The OP Stack contributors shipped numerous impactful features in 2024, benefitting not only the Superchain, but Ethereum:

• After two years of R&D efforts, EIP-4844 delivered significant cost reductions for all L2s, with gas fees dropping more than 10x.

• Sunnyside Labs shipped span batches which cut overhead for running OP Chains by 90%, enhancing affordability and efficiency.

• RIP-7212 became available on the Superchain, delivering native passkey verification at lower cost – enabling developers to build smoother smart wallet experiences without the constraints of scale and cost.

• Superchain incident response capabilities received upgrades to leverage the collective security intelligence of the entire Superchain.

• Dev Console launched as a one-stop shop for developers building on the Superchain.

• The Superchain Registry and Blockspace Charters were introduced to provide transparency and clarity for the ecosystem.

Collaborative growth

The Optimism Collective continues to pioneer sustainable scaling for Ethereum while working together to create an internet that benefits all, and is owned by all. Optimism Governance supports the growth of the Superchain and sustains the Optimism Collective over the long term.

Governance milestones

Governance ensures that protocol development continues to happen in the best interest of the Superchain, that contributors are incentivized to build open source infrastructure, and that the Collective can reach its goals. Throughout the year:

• Governance passed 9 protocol upgrades, including the crucial fault proofs upgrade.

• The delegated supply of OP grew from 74M to 105M OP.

• 23M OP was dedicated to builders by the Grants Council to fuel ecosystem growth.

In 2024, the Collective launched its first Security Council, marking a significant step toward decentralization. OP Governance also moved to onchain treasury execution, advancing its progressive decentralization.

The year saw the establishment of a Standard Blockspace Charter and a shared upgrade system for the Superchain, and welcomed the first batch of OP Chains to the Chain Delegation Program.

By year's end, the Collective united around a core pillar of the Superchain product vision for 2025: Interoperability. This intent aligns all contributors toward a common goal: making the Superchain truly interoperable.

Retro Funding: Rewarding builders for positive impact

Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro Funding) is the Optimism Collective's impact-based reward mechanism that recognizes meaningful contributions on the Superchain. In 2024, Retro Funding distributed 20.4M OP through 3 rounds to 374 projects. Recipients included onchain builders deploying contracts to the Superchain, core contributors to Ethereum and the OP Stack, and developers of open source tooling and governance infrastructure.

Optimism remains committed to funding public goods that empower the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Through Retro Funding, we've become one of the largest supporters of Protocol Guild – a collective of L1 core developers – and other L1 client and infrastructure teams. In Round 5 alone, 3.1M OP was allocated to Ethereum core contributors. Additionally, the round included rewards to projects that are open source – a testament to our support of open source technology.

2024 was a crucial year for Retro Funding experimentation, which yielded valuable insights for the ecosystem. In 2025, the program will provide builders with more consistent support by transitioning from annual rounds to a continuous impact evaluation with regular rewards.

Rewarding users onchain

The Optimism Collective rewards users who create meaningful impact. In 2024, a total of over 20M OP was dedicated to reward more than 76K unique addresses through two airdrops.

Airdrop #4 recognized artists, creators, and pioneers who helped shape culture across the Superchain and the broader crypto ecosystem. Airdrop #5 celebrated power users who actively engaged with apps across the Superchain ecosystem. Over 550M OP remains dedicated for future airdrops to reward users who create meaningful impact.

Curious about your personal on-chain activity? Dive into the community-built REWIND app for a detailed look at your Superchain journey throughout 2024.

Driving user engagement

During 2024, the Superchain ecosystem launched four major initiatives to boost user engagement and activity, with more than 3.3M OP tokens distributed to winners.

• SuperFest showcased cutting-edge DeFi apps on the Superchain, encouraging users to explore and engage with these innovative platforms.

• The SUNNYs celebrated exceptional contributions from onchain artists, developers, and community builders across the Superchain ecosystem.

• Superhack brought developers onchain to build the future of the internet and experiment with tooling and ecosystems across the Superchain.

• We Love The Art celebrated the diverse talent and imagination of digital artists innovating onchain.

Looking ahead to 2025

With 2024 behind us, the Collective enters 2025 with relentless optimism. The focus for the year ahead is clear: Interoperability. By uniting the Collective around a shared objective, we’re bringing the Superchain closer to its ultimate goal – a seamless, scalable platform capable of supporting billions of users and developers.

Our priorities for 2025 are simple: cement the Superchain as the best place for DeFi, make it the easiest, more rewarding place to build and bootstrap applications with thoughtful developer tooling, and unite Ethereum through Superchain Interop and beyond.

The path ahead promises even more transformative progress as we build the future of Ethereum together. Here’s to another year of growth, collaboration, and optimism!

The power of collaboration

While Ethereum competes with other ecosystems, focusing solely on outperforming competitors misses the bigger picture. Competition is healthy and natural, but right now we need to direct more of that competitive energy on creating meaningful value for users.

The participants of the EIF admitted that the true challenge – and opportunity – lies in delivering solutions that outperform both traditional financial systems like SEPA and wire transfers and existing blockchain alternatives. The goal is to deliver a World Computer that is simpler to use, faster and cheaper, and truly global in reach. This realization has sparked a powerful collaborative movement within the Ethereum community.

Setting shared goals

The collaborative and human-coordination spirit is fundamental to the Ethereum community's ability to bring diverse stakeholders together to work towards common goals. During the EIF, the community established a clear, user-centric goal: enabling asset transfers between any 2 chains in less than 3 blocks.

To put this in perspective, this means transfers would take no more than 36 seconds between the Ethereum L1 and L2s, and 6 seconds at most between L2s like OP Mainnet and Unichain.

This isn't just an arbitrary target – it's a commitment to developing shared standards that allow us to scale at capacity. To achieve this, the Ethereum Foundation, participating L2s, and wallet providers identified two key focus areas for H1 2025 that don't require major protocol changes:

• Onchain configurations

• Chain-specific addresses

ERC-7785: Onchain configurations for standardizing chain information

Putting L2 chain configs onchain would create a standardized way to verify that a transaction was included in L2. The solution lies in moving the chain parameters currently hosted on chainlist.org directly onto L1. Because onchain configs include chain IDs and network parameters that light clients require for verification, wallets would be able to utilize chain configs alongside a light client to verify fund transfers, without relying on intermediaries.

Storing L2 chain configurations onchain provides several benefits:

• It enables a more standardized user experience for sending transactions across the Ethereum ecosystem.

• It improves wallet security by reducing reliance on infrastructure companies for transaction verification and information.

• It allows for chains to bootstrap themselves more quickly by permissionlessly adding themselves to the onchain registry.

• It eliminates intermediaries in defining the canonical definition of the chain.

ERC-7828: Chain-specific addresses for simplifying user experience

User experience currently varies significantly across different chains and wallets. At EIF, participants discussed the need for users to transact on Ethereum simply, without having to think about which chain they're on. Chain-specific addresses offer one solution to this challenge.

Vitalik Buterin provided valuable insights on this topic in his recent overview of wallet improvements, focusing on enhancing cross-chain transaction UX. One key proposal is the implementation of chain-specific addresses in a user-friendly format. For example, an address could look like this:

0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045@optimism.eth

In a scenario where users want to deposit into a protocol, they are provided with an address in the above-presented format. They simply paste it into their wallet's "to" field and click "send." Now that the wallet knows what chain the user wants to go to, the wallet handles all cross-chain complexity, ensuring assets arrive on the intended chain. This means users can transfer assets without switching networks or using bridges.

The path forward

The Ethereum Foundation is taking the lead in coordinating interoperability efforts throughout 2025, but success depends on continued collaboration across the ecosystem. Please see the simplified roadmap for a high-level view on the proposed plan for Ethereum-wide interoperability. We're already seeing progress with several ERCs and proposals in development, including:

• ERC-7785 for onchain configs

• ERC-7828 for chain-specific addresses

• ERC-7683 for cross-chain intents

• ERC-7802 for cross-chain token interface

• RIP-7755 for cross-chain calls

The future of Ethereum interoperability isn't just about technical solutions – it's about our community's ability to work together. By combining our expertise and resources, we can create the seamless, user-friendly experience that will drive Ethereum forward.

TLDR

• Learnings from 2024: While Retroactive Public Goods Funding rewarded hundreds of builders in 2024, the program still has room to improve in accuracy and reliability, ensuring builders are rewarded fairly and continuously for their impact.

• Shifting to Continuous Rewards: The program will transition from annual rounds to ongoing impact evaluation and regular rewards throughout the year, offering builders greater consistency and predictability.

• Metrics-Driven, Human-Guided Evaluations: Combining onchain metrics with human expertise will create a more accurate evaluation system, while still allowing voters with relevant expertise to express qualitative feedback.

• Scope in 2025: This year, Retro Funding will focus on Dev Tooling (developer tools like libraries and debuggers), Onchain Builders (projects driving cross-chain activity), and OP Stack Contributions (with a focus on Ethereum Core Development). Details on these programs will be published in January.

• Vision for Ethers’ Phoenix: The end goal of Retro Funding remains to create an economy that fairly rewards impact across the entire value chain, addressing common market failures, and making the production of public goods as profitable as building closed-source software.

Building the Impact Oracle

Retroactive Public Goods Funding is the economic engine of the Optimism Collective. It rewards the impact contributors have on the Collective, in order to realize Optimism’s guiding principle of “impact = profit”: the idea that positive impact to the Collective should result in a reward to the individual. With 850M OP dedicated to Retro Funding, it’s one of the most ambitious initiatives to date aimed at re-envisioning how to better align incentives to impact.

Since measuring and defining impact is complex and hard, Retro Funding runs as an iterative experiment in which insights and learnings from each round inform the design of future experiments. In 2024, we made significant improvements to our approach to experimentation, which generated insightful learnings across the 3 Retro Rounds conducted.

Where we are today

In 2024, Retro Funding rewarded over 400 builders with 20m OP across 3 retro rounds. While we have made promising progress on measuring impact, the program still fails to reliably support important contributions to Optimism. Furthermore, we lack sufficient evidence that rewards have caused significant ecosystem growth.

Key builders have repeatedly highlighted that Retro Funding is not reliable enough to drive their contributions to Optimism, as they have no way of knowing how impact is measured, and when upcoming rounds will take place.

1. Taem from Sunnyside Labs (formerly Test in Prod), the first external OP Stack core development team, shared that: “I’m not convinced the current allocation mechanism can accurately measure the impact of technical contributions. I believe it's going to be improved because the core contributors are very serious about making it better.”

2. tmm from Wevm, which creates developer tools, such as Wagmi and Viem, that are beloved by onchain builders, mentioned: “Right now we can’t solely rely on Retro Funding to reward our contributions to Optimism. It happens too infrequently and there isn't enough predictability with reward amounts.”

3. Trent from Protocol Guild, a collective of Ethereum Core Developers, and the top recipient of Retro Funding across all rounds to date, stated: “While we've been a top recipient in past rounds, the unique large-scale nature of our mechanism still means it is not being rewarded proportional to the impact provided. The eligibility of rounds and allocation processes can still use a lot of improvement.”

4. WagmiAlexander from Velodrome, one of the most successful DeFi Protocols on the Superchain, highlighted: “High quality projects drive outsized impact, but the allocations to date don’t reflect that. As of right now, for application builders across the Superchain, Retro Funding is not seen as a significant factor.”

In its current form, Retro Funding rounds have room to improve in accelerating the Superchain’s growth. The program’s opportunities can be narrowed down to three buckets:

1. Alignment: Retro Funding lacks a structured framework to ensure that rewards reflect the value of impactful contributions, limiting its ability to truly operationalize the principle of "impact = profit."

2. Accuracy: Retro rounds can improve in their ability to reward impact accurately and proportionally. This has been a point of reflection on Retro Funding 5 & 6 with allocations showcasing very low variance of reward amounts.

3. Consistency: Rounds for a given scope have taken place once per year, with big changes in scope and eligibility. The rules of the game have constantly evolved, making it hard for builders to rely on the program.

Based on what Optimism has learned about Retro Funding in 2024, the program will evolve in 2025 to focus on measurement-driven impact analysis, consistent rewards, and a comprehensive framework to evaluate which public goods the mechanism can support.

The Impact Chain - A framework for realizing impact = profit

Optimism is the Superchain, a network of L2 chains, known as OP Chains, which share security, a communication layer, and an open-source technology stack. At the heart of the Superchain is the blockspace it provides to builders and consumers.

Optimism is built on impact=profit — the principle that positive impact to the Collective should be rewarded with profit to the individual — but thus far, Retro Funding has failed to translate this principle into tactical mechanisms within the program. The Impact Chain aims at addressing this problem, providing a framework for how the Collective will achieve impact = profit over time.

The Impact Chain is a dependency graph which maps out all contributions across the Superchain: from the protocol’s foundation  (such as Ethereum software, the OP Stack and more) to contributions that drive Superchain blockspace consumption (such as onchain contracts, developer tooling, and more).

In the table below you can see the key components of the Impact Chain and how they each relate to Superchain blockspace:

Although these key components frame the Impact Chain as a linear graph, in reality, it is a complex interdependent graph in which multiple components have the same dependencies across the stack.

Market Failures

The Impact Chain may suffer from market failures, where the market fails to effectively allocate goods and services (e.g. the allocation is not Pareto efficient), leading to a loss of economic value. Market failures include monopolization, negative externalities, information asymmetry, and especially, the production and maintenance of public goods.

In well-functioning markets, impactful builders are naturally rewarded (realizing impact = profit). This is not the case when there is a market failure. Retro Funding's job is to correct possible market failures by providing reliable rewards to impactful builders in otherwise unprofitable markets.

Bootstrapping markets

In addition to correcting failures within existing markets, Retro Funding aims to catalyze net new markets as well. Retro Funding plans to achieve this by identifying economic goals, and rewarding the impact of progress towards these goals. This capability will be particularly useful to bootstrap new markets, especially in kickstarting new features corresponding to technical innovation, such as interop.

The endgame

Our endgame is to get Retroactive Public Goods Funding to a state in which it is capable of  monitoring the whole impact chain and intervening in order to correct market failures and bootstrap new markets, while accurately rewarding impact to realize impact = profit; this state is what we refer to as Ethers’ Phoenix.

Accuracy

To realize the vision of impact = profit, Retro Funding needs to accurately measure impact.

In 2024, we have radically increased our advancement on how to measure impact by shipping experiments on metrics-based impact evaluation and expert-based impact evaluation.

Moving forward we hope to combine the best parts of what humans and data are good at, capturing both qualitative and quantitative aspects of impact.

Metrics-driven, human in the loop

This approach leverages data’s systematic reach with human intuition’s nuanced adjustments. Metrics establish a quantitative foundation, ensuring that projects are assessed objectively and fairly, while human input adds layers of qualitative nuance, including quality, innovation, and momentum. An iterative feedback loop lets us adjust metrics based on the insights of humans with domain-specific knowledge. This process is similar to RLHF (Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback) in machine learning, but with an emphasis on retaining clear, interpretable inputs for human adjustments.

Process Overview:

1. Retro round goals: Each retro round establishes one or multiple measurable goals within its specific domain.

2. Evaluation algorithm: Metrics-based evaluations generate initial token allocation proposals within each domain. Humans with domain-specific knowledge review allocations, fine-tune the metrics, and choose the best allocations.

3. Iterative Refinement: Continuous backtesting helps align metrics with desired outcomes, improving the model over time. Iteration cycles are significantly reduced, allowing us to learn at an accelerated pace.

Retro Rounds Goals

Each retro round establishes one or multiple measurable goals within its specific domain. These goals should drive the system towards impact = profit. In a subsequent step, an evaluation algorithm is selected to achieve this goal.

Evaluation Algorithm

The evaluation algorithm defines the measurement of impact for a given retro round.

Today, Retro Funding leverages an evaluation algorithm which solely relies on the input of a number of badgeholders to evaluate impact.

$$evaluationAlgorithm(project) = median(badgeholder1Assesment, badgeholder2Assesment, ....)$$

In the future, a number of metrics will be used to evaluate impact.

$$evaluationAlgorithm(project) = weight * impactMetric1 + weight * impactMetric2$$

Humans with domain-specific knowledge provide qualitative nuance to measurements by rating allocations, providing qualitative input and feedback. Based on this input, metrics are continuously refined to achieve accuracy.

Principles for metrics:

1. Evolutionary: As a measure becomes a target (Goodhart’s law), metrics need to continuously evolve to stay good measurements of impact.

2. Robust: As metrics become a target, they are subject to attacks such as manipulation. The metrics design needs to focus on robustness to minimize the effectiveness of attacks.

3. Reproducible: To enable performance measurement of an evaluation algorithm, impact metrics need to be reproducible over time. Data points which are not continuously generated over time will limit the ability to backtest evaluation algorithms.

While we use objective metrics as a basis for evaluating impact, it is critical that we reinforce the notion that these evaluation algorithms are inherently subjective. Over time we can encode this subjectivity into the system by introducing multiple competing impact evaluation algorithms, each based on different value systems. These value systems may fundamentally conflict, but embracing diversity is key to cultivating a decentralized & creative ecosystem.

Iterative Refinement:

After the conclusion of a relevant timeframe, we measure how the evaluation algorithm performed at achieving its goal and can validate or falsify hypotheses.

Pioneering the metrics-driven model with humans in the loop pushes us into a new territory. While Retro Funding 4: Onchain Builders provided valuable insights in this area, there’s a range of topics to explore, from the governance mechanisms of the evaluation algorithm to the datasets which enable measurement.

In the spirit of experimentation, we want to continuously validate that this model delivers desired outcomes. Here are the results we aim to achieve in order to confirm that metrics-driven, humans in the loop results in higher accuracy impact measurement:

1. Satisfaction with allocations: Badgeholders, and other stakeholders, will rate their satisfaction with allocations consistently higher compared to 2024.

2. Acceleration: The evaluation algorithm will be consistently improved upon at a much faster rate than the previously-used purely human evaluation paradigm.

3. Iterative Refinement: At the end of the Governance Season, we will observe significant progress in the quality of evaluation algorithms of specific domains.

Consistency

In 2024, rounds took place once per year per category, with the detailed scope and eligibility announced shortly before the round. The initially announced round titles and vague description preemptively set expectations for many builders which the program did not fulfill. This led to frustration for many builders, who were expecting to be rewarded, and found out shortly before the round took place that they were not eligible to participate.

To address these shortcomings**,** Retro Funding will no longer reward impact within annual  domain-specific rounds. Instead, Retro Funding will run as a continuous reward mechanism, with a regular cadence of impact measurement and reward distribution.

Ongoing Retro Funding

Metrics-driven impact evaluation enables the ability to continuously reward impact because it reduces the operational lift of measuring impact within a given time period.

This enables some exciting new upgrades to the builder experience:

1. Consistent scope & eligibility: While badgeholders will have the ability to update the details of impact evaluation, the scope of a domain specific program will not change within a Governance Season. Our aim should be to maintain a consistent scope over an extended time period, while keeping the flexibility to support changes in the Collective’s roadmap and goals (Intents) in the short-term. More on this within the “scope” section below.

2. Predictable rewards: By using a set of metrics, we can provide builders with insights on how their impact is measured and rewarded. This allows builders to form a much more interactive relationship with the system, understanding the causal relationship between their actions, the resulting outcomes and their rewards.

3. Rolling application windows: Builders can join the program at regular intervals, reducing the “all or nothing” nature of applying to a round.

4. Regular rewards: Builders receive rewards on regular shorter timeframes (quarterly, monthly, weekly).

Retro Funding Missions

Thus far, builders were faced with different token allocation programs across the Optimism Token House, Citizens’ House and Foundation, making it difficult to discover opportunities. To improve consistency across Collective token allocation, Retro Funding will become part of the larger Missions framework. While Retro Funding continues to pursue the impact = profit vision, this alignment will ensure cohesive operations across all token allocation programs.

Scope of rewards

The following are considerations to decide on the program domains and scope for 2025:

1. Impact measurement capability: What impact can we measure today?

2. Supporting the Intent: Which programs can advance the Collective’s 2025 Intent?

3. Value Chain applied: where can we observe market failures, or the opportunity to bootstrap activity?

Impact measurement capability

Since we’ve learned that metrics-based evaluation is more accurate and effective, let’s start with understanding what impact we can measure today. Our capabilities are largely dependent on the data coverage within relevant domains.

Over the past year the Optimism Foundation has partnered with Open Source Observer (OSO), an open source data pipeline to power the insights behind Retro Funding. Open Source Observer runs open data infrastructure as a public good. To date, OSO processes over 100TB from 12+ data providers to produce 1000+ data models maintained by 80+ contributors in a growing data collective community.

Today’s data coverage includes GitHub data, onchain activity, project artifacts, reputation from sources like Farcaster, ENS, and Gitcoin, and package dependencies (More details here).

There are several areas where we are missing sufficient data coverage today. These include network service dependencies (RPC node providers, indexers, etc), offchain user analytics, individual and team impact within a project, and market data for various services.

Supporting the Intent

In 2025, Optimism is focused on our Collective Intent to achieve “A set of stage 1 chains doing $250m per month in cross-chain asset transfers”. You can find out more about this intent in our [blog post] or [forum post]. This is a step in the journey to realize the [Superchain product vision] published last month. This focus for the Collective in 2025 can also add focus to the scope of Retro Funding in 2025.

Retro Funding in H1 2025

The following programs are planned for H1 2025:

• Retro Funding: Dev Tooling will reward toolchain software, such as compilers, libraries and debuggers, that support builders in developing onchain applications and adopting interoperability on the Superchain.

  • The Dev Tooling round originally planned as "Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling" in 2024, will be folded into the ongoing rewards for Dev Tooling throughout 2025.

• Retro Funding: Onchain Builders will reward projects that grow the Superchain economy and drive cross-chain asset transfers enabled by interop across eligible OP Chains.

These programs will allow the Collective to double down on metrics-based impact evaluation, help support the Collective’s strategic priorities, and continue to address market failures across the Optimism and broader crypto ecosystems.

Retro Funding in H2 2025

In the second half of the year, the Foundation is likely to propose the continuous execution and iteration of the Dev Tooling and Onchain Builder programs. In addition, the Foundation plans to propose an OP Stack program, starting with a limited scope around supporting Ethereum Core Development. Optimism will work with builders in the community to develop a structure that relies on consistent measurement-based evaluation to reward core developers’ impact. Ethereum Core Development has already made significant progress within this area by implementing self-governance of reward allocation among core developers with Protocol Guild.

What about other contributions to Optimism?

Retroactive Public Goods Funding is increasing its focus in order to improve the core reward mechanism, make the program more reliable and trustworthy for builders, and address the market failures most important to Optimism and Ethereum’s success.

Ultimately, Retro Funding aims to expand to all layers of the impact chain as measurement capabilities improve, and as the world moves onchain.

Retro Funding is far from the only token allocation program within the Optimism Collective. To learn about other opportunities, see the grant overview.

Ethers’ Phoenix or bust

The goal for Retroactive Public Goods Funding remains to achieve the axiom of impact = profit, a world in which every contributor to Optimism is fairly rewarded for their impact. An economy where building public goods can be as rewarding as building closed-source software. A fork of capitalism, that embraces collaboration and market forces.

We have never felt more confident in this vision.

Stay Optimistic!

Interoperability is the key to achieving this vision, and it’s the central focus of the Optimism Collective’s roadmap for 2025. Our unified objective for 2025 is:

a set of interoperable Stage 1 chains doing $250m per month in cross-chain asset transfers.

By making it easier for chains to communicate and share users, data, and assets, interoperability will unlock the full potential of the Superchain. The Collective’s contributors, teams, and growth programs will be focused on driving the development and adoption of interoperability in 2025.

Overcoming the Hurdles of Multi-Chain Ecosystems

Today, Ethereum and other blockchain ecosystems suffer from fragmentation. To transfer assets or data between chains, users must rely on Layer 1 Ethereum, which is costly and slow. This creates significant friction for both developers and users. Developers face the "cold start" problem of managing complex, costly multi-chain infrastructures, while users experience a fragmented and confusing interface.

Think of it this way: if today’s chains were cities, they exist with unpaved roads between them. This makes it difficult to exchange goods and limits growth opportunities. But just as highways transformed cities, native interoperability will enable smooth, efficient communication between chains, paving the way for the Superchain’s success.

With Superchain interoperability, assets and data will become fungible and portable across chains. This means application developers can create applications that tap into the resources of the entire Superchain. And it means chain deployers can tap into a rich set of Superchain network effects immediately upon launch. The result will be a unified, scalable ecosystem that unlocks new use cases and drives innovation.

Superchain Standards for Interoperability

To make interoperability work, we're introducing a set of technical standards and protocols that ensure secure, efficient cross-chain communication. Key components include:

• Message Passing Protocol: This enables secure cross-chain messages, allowing data and transactions to flow freely within the Superchain.

• ERC 7802: A standard token bridging interface that aims to proliferate and simplify crosschain token transfers as demonstrated by SuperchainERC20 tokens.

• Interop Fault Proof: A security layer that ties the security of chains together, without introducing fundamentally new assumptions or trusted parties.

These standards will lay the foundation for a more integrated Superchain, where each chain can scale independently but still contribute to the collective success of the network. Optimism will also continue to support Ethereum-wide interoperability standards like EIP 7683, to ensure that UX throughout the L2 Ecosystem improves in tandem with the Superchain.

Driving Adoption and Growth

To support the overall focus on delivering interoperability, the Collective’s growth mechanisms will focus on the following key areas:

• Increase overall Superchain users and economic activity.

• Support developer tooling and drive adoption of interop standards.

• Drive developer adoption and consumer usage of interoperable applications.

The Collective’s focus on interoperability allows us to align behind a set of shared measurements for success. Token allocation programs, Retro Funding, grants, airdrops, and growth campaigns can experiment with different tactics to drive the ecosystem outcomes we’re aligned behind. For more information on success metrics and the various programs across the Collective, see the Season 7 Intent Overview.

In Season 7, the Grants Council will determine the best way to make grants in support of the Superchain’s success. The Foundation will continue to allocate tokens from the Partner and Seed funds to support projects bootstrapping and growing the Superchain. As always, tokens that are circulating and that have been committed are shared publicly and updated on a monthly basis.

What We’re Enabling: User Journeys for 2025

As we focus on interoperability in 2025, the ultimate goal is to provide tangible value for developers, users, and platforms. By enabling smoother, more efficient cross-chain communication, we’re solving key pain points that will unlock a range of new possibilities for the Ethereum ecosystem. Here’s a glimpse into how this will play out for different types of builders and users:

1) Chain Operators Scaling with Interoperability

Problem: Chain Operators must build ecosystems of developers, assets, and activity from scratch, due to siloing in independent hubs.

What We’re Enabling: Chain Operators can confidently opt into Optimism and the Superchain’s decentralized governance model, enabling a clear process to reach Stage 1 decentralization. Shared security and standardization enables seamless interoperability, unlocking interconnectivity between economic hubs. Chain Operators can easily deploy an interop testnet through a reference Superchain tutorial. As developers deploy interoperable tokens through standards like SuperchainERC20, Chains will grow from their own unique customer experience, without fragmentation of builders or assets. This leads to a more secure and scalable platform that eventually eclipses the TVL and transaction volume of competing ecosystems.

2) OP Stack Developers Building Faster and More Efficiently

Problem: Developers contributing to the OP Stack risk spending more time building tooling and infrastructure than actually building protocol features themselves.

What We’re Enabling: A protocol developer can now benefit from fast feedback loops (CI & PR reviews) and an easier development environment, without needing to fork the monorepo or develop complex tooling just to build protocol features. By reducing the time spent on setting up development infrastructure, they can focus on the core protocol functionality itself. This streamlined process allows for faster iteration on protocol features and improvements, ultimately speeding up the development lifecycle and accelerating the Collective’s contributions to the OP Stack.

3) A Streamlined Experience for App Devs

Problem: New developers spend more time setting up test environments and tooling than building the apps themselves.

What We’re Enabling: A developer can quickly get started on the Superchain, with the same seamless development experience from local development on Supersim to mainnet. This consistency reduces friction and enables faster deployment, allowing them to build and deploy cross-chain applications with minimal setup. The ability to build interoperable applications on the Superchain accelerates asset bootstrapping and user adoption. This drives a more rewarding platform and a best in class developer experience with fast experimentation cycles.

4) Consumers Migrate their Assets and Activity

Problem: Users seeking faster finality and snappy user experience prefer platforms outside of the Superchain for their transactions.

What We’re Enabling: Users initially hesitant to move assets to the Superchain will experience the speed and efficiency of transactions across the network via confirmations as fast as sub-second. With seamless cross-chain transactions, they find the economic opportunity and user experience compelling enough to migrate assets from other ecosystems. The ease of moving assets across chains without compromising on capital efficiency makes the Superchain an attractive place.

The Road Ahead: Scaling the Superchain

In the coming years, we expect the Superchain to scale from a handful of interconnected chains to hundreds or even thousands. Interoperability will make every chain in the Superchain feel like part of a cohesive, unified ecosystem, with fast, cheap transactions and a seamless user experience.

We are laying the groundwork for a truly scalable, sustainable Ethereum ecosystem that can support the needs of developers and users worldwide.

Ink offers secure and seamless access to compelling, streamlined DeFi experiences for an ever-growing community of crypto users.

With 10 million users in 180+ countries, Kraken is one of the world’s largest digital asset exchanges and most respected brands in crypto. Ink’s commitment to the Superchain is a big win for the entire ecosystem.

Rather than compete or create fragmentation with a siloed network, Kraken decided to release Ink on the Superchain: a positive-sum ecosystem powered by Optimism’s open-source tech stack and unified by a global vision to scale Ethereum.

With the Superchain, the success of any single chain benefits all involved, and Ink will be an important contributor and beneficiary of this positive-sum network. Like all teams in the Superchain, Ink will share a percentage of its revenue with the Optimism Collective, participate in Optimism governance, and support core development of the OP Stack.

Ink: an onramp to the onchain future

Kraken came to the Superchain with a vision to bring global users onchain. They saw an opportunity to facilitate new applications across DeFi where simplicity, community, and innovation align.

Launching with 1-second block times, Ink will support use cases like DEXs, lending, perps, yield protocols and more; making it accessible for crypto-native and crypto-curious participants to explore a range of onchain applications.

Ink developers will receive robust support and resources giving them the opportunity to connect with 10+ million users.

“An L2 is only as good as the value it brings to users, and that value is created by a thriving ecosystem of developers,” said Andrew Koller, Founder of Ink. “As part of the Superchain, Ink is laying the groundwork for an interoperable and pluralistic onchain ecosystem that will attract developers and make Ink the ideal platform for the next generation of DeFi applications and protocols.”

Inking the Superchain future together

Teams like Coinbase, Sony, World, Uniswap, and Kraken have all chosen to build with Optimism’s OP Stack, and make the Superchain their home. The Superchain ecosystem is now composed of 30+ chains built on a common standard codebase that share security, governance, and values.

Today, the Superchain sees over 7 million daily transactions, and nearly half of all Ethereum L2 transactions are happening on the OP Stack. Activity is consistently increasing, and soon we believe a vast majority of L2 transactions will take place on the OP Stack.

Together, the Superchain’s flywheel will bring Ethereum to internet-level scale.

What’s Next for Ink and the Superchain

Ink is part of the Superchain’s path to interoperability and, like other Superchain builders, will support SuperchainERC20 at launch.

SuperchainERC20 is a universal token configuration for the OP Stack; a minimal extension to the ERC20 standard that enables cross chain portability and fungibility. With this standardized security model, all assets are fungible with each other across all interop-compatible OP Chains.

When Superchain interop is fully live, Ink will benefit from the ability to seamlessly interact with other OP Chains, including Base, OP Mainnet, Soneium, Unichain, and World Chain. Interop will reduce fragmentation and provide builders and users alike with the best onchain UX.

In the coming weeks, Ink’s testnet will open with a series of AMAs, live demos, and contests onboarding developers to the network. Developers are also invited to meet the Ink team at DevCon in November.

Ink’s mainnet launch is planned for early 2025.

Optimism started as a project with a single L2 chain and the goal to scale Ethereum — both its technology and its values. The blockchain industry has evolved, and so has Optimism’s approach.

Reaching the full potential of Ethereum requires a network of chains: all working together, built on a shared standard that enables interoperability and realizes the benefits of network effects. To achieve internet scale for Ethereum, one chain alone is not enough.

This vision comes to life through the Superchain - a network of Optimism-governed blockchains built on a common standard codebase that also shares security and values.

That means that, now, Optimism is so much more than its initial single chain, OP Mainnet. It’s the foundation of the Superchain, supporting a robust community of Ethereum-aligned builders including Coinbase, Uniswap, World, Sony, and more. It’s unlocking the potential of shared infrastructure to build the Internet of the future.

From one chain to the Superchain

Today, the Superchain is the platform that can build the next iteration of the open and equitable internet for all. From its inception, the Superchain was envisioned as a unified, interoperable network of chains. Making the Superchain vision a reality has been a central focus of development across the Optimism Collective ever since.

What makes this vision and this ecosystem truly unique, is its ability to bring together teams that would traditionally be seen as competitive. In the Superchain, we’re playing a positive-sum game; when any chain succeeds, the entire Collective benefits together. In a space rife with fragmentation, projects building on the Superchain are actively working together to make the onchain experience more connected for developers and more seamless for users across the Superchain, and beyond.

The Superchain ecosystem creates a flywheel of sustainable growth and development,  benefiting the entire Collective. Optimism’s role is to provide the technology stack and governance system to empower the Superchain and its builders.

Shared standards, shared language

With almost 30 OP Chains in the Superchain ecosystem and nearly half of all L2 transactions taking place on the OP Stack, our community is bigger than ever.

We want to take the opportunity to reintroduce the key pillars of the Optimism Collective. These individual components work together to build the foundation that powers the Superchain and the flywheel that propels our efforts to build the next iteration of an open, equitable internet and a self-sustaining community.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Optimism

Optimism started as a single L2 chain with a goal to scale Ethereum's technology and values. Optimism is no longer a single chain. Now, it represents the Superchain, building a unified network of blockchains all powered by the open-source OP Stack.

The Superchain

The Superchain is a network of OP-governed blockchains built on a common standard codebase that shares security, governance, and values. Every OP Chain in the Superchain is built using the OP Stack and governed by the Optimism Collective. With this structure, each chain adheres to shared standards and principles, shared updates and security, and access to grants and airdrops across the ecosystem. Each OP Chain in the Superchain contributes the same percentage of protocol fees back to the Optimism Collective, and together OP Chains in the Superchain Ecosystem have the power to grow Ethereum to an internet-level scale. The Superchain is a positive-sum network; the success of any single chain benefits all chains in the ecosystem.

OP Stack

The OP Stack is an open source, MIT-licensed technology stack for deploying scalable blockchain infrastructure. As an Ethereum-aligned scaling solution, the OP Stack emphasizes parallel development, openness, and transparency. The modular codebase powers the Superchain and all OP Chains.

OP Chains are blockchains that are built on the OP Stack. While the OP Stack is open source and freely available for anyone to use and fork, OP Chains in the Superchain ecosystem use standard configurations of the OP Stack.

OP Mainnet

OP Mainnet is one of many OP Chains in the Superchain, providing neutral blockspace and a home for OP Governance. Like with other OP Chains, developers building on OP Mainnet are eligible for Retro Funding and grants from the Governance Fund to support their projects.

While Optimism and OP Mainnet used to be synonymous, Optimism has evolved to be so much more than a single chain. Optimism is the home of the Superchain. OP Mainnet is a single OP Chain in the Superchain.

Optimism Governance

Optimism Governance is a decentralized, two-house system that supports the growth of the Superchain and sustains the Optimism Collective over the long term. Governance ensures that protocol development continues to happen in the best interest of the Superchain, that contributors are incentivized to build open source infrastructure, and that the Collective can organize to respond to changing environments.

Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro Funding)

Retro Funding is a reward mechanism that drives the growth of the Optimism ecosystem.

By rewarding positive impact to the Collective, developers, businesses, creators, and educators are incentivized to continue making open sourced and impactful contributions to the Superchain. Retro Funding is not a charitable endeavor; it's an economic model where contributions that benefit the Collective are valued and rewarded. Retro Funding powers the positive-sum effort of building a fair and open internet and incentivizes contributors to continue building for the common good.

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A shared language helps bring the benefits and the power of the Superchain to life. We’re building the future of crypto and the internet alongside an ever-growing community of builders, chain operators, and users, we’ve never felt more optimistic.

Optimism’s mission has always been to scale Ethereum, and a critical component of that effort has been continuing to expand the Superchain. With nearly half of all L2 transactions now powered by Optimism’s OP Stack, it has clearly emerged as the leading shared standard for scaling Ethereum.

As part of the Superchain, Unichain joins a network of the most prominent blockchains all built on a common standard codebase that share security, governance, and values. Like all OP Chains in the Superchain, Unichain will contribute the greater of 2.5% of chain profit or 15% of chain revenue back to the Optimism Collective.

Unichain will also participate in Optimism Governance, and support core development that will benefit all developers on the OP Stack. Unichain developers will benefit from access to incentives like Retro Funding, a reward mechanism that drives the growth of the Optimism ecosystem.

Together, we’ll shape the future of the Optimism Collective. Together, we’ll scale Ethereum.

Unichain, powered by the OP Stack

Uniswap Labs skyrocketed to DeFi dominance over the past several years, but wanted to scale Ethereum further with more blockspace, faster speeds, and lower gas fees. In order to meet the sophisticated demands of today’s always-on DeFi ecosystem, Uniswap Labs began to explore the potential for launching an L2.

Powering nearly half of all L2 transactions on Ethereum, the OP Stack is the most trusted codebase for chain developers. Its battle-tested, open-source technology, paired with the Superchain’s network effects, governance and interop roadmap, made Optimism the ideal place for Uniswap Labs to build for the future, where abundant blockspace powers a better internet.

Unichain opens the door for DeFi developers of all types to bring their applications onchain with new features and tooling.  This paves the way for Unichain to support use cases like prediction markets, borrowing and lending, real-world assets, and consumer financial apps.

Unichain prioritizes the needs of DeFi users from day one, and the Superchain is a ready-made home for DeFi applications of all types.

The Superchain gains another unicorn

Unichain is part of the Superchain’s path to interoperability, and will support ERC20s that are Superchain interop compatible.

When Superchain interop goes live, data and assets will move between OP Chains without needing to go through L1, unifying liquidity and helping developers solve for existing fragmentation. This stepping stone towards horizontally scaling Ethereum will unlock a new network effect for all Superchain participants.

Unichain will be the first OP Stack L2 to launch with 1-second block times. Uniswap Labs is also working with Flashbots to develop a new TEE-based block builder that reduces Unichain confirmation times from 1 second to 250 milliseconds. This massive UX improvement will provide Unichain users with experiences that feel instant. Over time, these reduced block times will be available across the Superchain - a request we’ve heard from developers across the ecosystem, and an experience that will benefit all OP Chains.

This system follows the rules of priority ordering, helping applications internalize MEV and protect users. Finally, it will help pave the way to sequencer hardening to protect against extraction of MEV.

Building together to grow the Superchain

Coinbase, Sony, Worldcoin, and Uniswap all have chosen Optimism as their home, leveraging the OP Stack for their blockchains. This makes the OP Stack the most commonly adopted shared standard for scaling Ethereum. All of these teams are building on the Superchain for its shared standards and values, and for the opportunity to contribute to a Collective powering an internet built by all, and owned by all. It’s a positive-sum ecosystem, where the success of one chain benefits everyone.

We’re thrilled to welcome Unichain to the Superchain ecosystem to work together in decentralizing the global finance system.

To learn more about Unichain, visit unichain.org.

The definition of the Superchain is simple: a network of blockchains built on a common standard codebase that share security, governance, and values. The Superchain is a positive-sum network; the success of any single chain benefits all chains in the ecosystem.

Today, every OP Chain in the Superchain operates under a standardized revenue sharing model, ensuring all chains contribute fairly and equitably, with no exceptions or special treatment. According to the Standard Rollup Charter, each chain commits a portion of their revenue back to the Optimism Collective through a fee split that is adhered to across the network. The fee split is calculated as the greater of either 2.5% of chain revenue or 15% of onchain profit, defined as fee revenue minus L1 gas fees.

To date, the Optimism Collective has generated over 14,000 ETH in revenue, and that number continues to grow as the Superchain gets bigger. Anyone can track the latest contribution data here. Over the coming months, more surfaces across the industry will show the Superchain as an aggregate as opposed to standalone chains, as we begin laying the foundation for our upcoming interoperability work.

By maintaining this uniform revenue sharing system, the Superchain upholds its commitment to decentralization and collective growth, ensuring that the contributions from each chain fuel the perpetual funding of public goods and ecosystem development. Together, OP Chains in the Superchain ecosystem have the power to support and sustain the Collective and grow Ethereum to internet-level scale.

The OP Stack is an MIT-licensed public good to the core. Anyone in the world can clone, fork, or deploy it, free of charge, and without permission. So why do chains like Base, Mode, Worldcoin, Zora, and all others in the Superchain choose to contribute shared revenue? The answer lies in the network structure designed to benefit the entire Collective, so that they want to opt in to access shared governance, shared upgrades and security, and ecosystem funding.

Let’s break down how the Superchain revenue sharing model works and support the Collective as a whole.

Where do sequencer fees go?

The most impactful thing that the Optimism Collective can do is to create a self-sufficient, self-sustaining economic model – a flywheel – that scales Ethereum and the open web.

The sequencer revenue collected from OP Chains flows back to the Optimism Collective to grow the Superchain. This revenue is currently not allocated for any specific programs, because initiatives like Retro Funding and the Collective’s grants programs are currently well set-up to deliver tokens to builders who create impact and adoption. In the future, Optimism Governance will determine how the revenue contributions from the Superchain’s OP Chains are used. All together, these programs are designed to create a powerful flywheel that sustains and grows the Superchain economy.

Already, Optimism Governance has given millions of OP back to developers. Whether you’re thinking of launching an app on a chain, or deciding to build your own chain, all OP Chains in the Superchain - and the developers that build on top of them - are eligible to apply for multiple grants programs designed to reward impactful contributions across the Collective.

Shared commitments, shared benefits

Demand to join the Superchain has never been higher, and that’s because projects have a lot to gain. Each team is building a part of something bigger than any individual project, and the success of any one chain benefits all. The combined engineering efforts of Superchain teams have allowed Optimism to outpace the competition and propel the OP Stack forward.

Shared upgrades and a shared standard mean improvements impact everyone in the Superchain. The Optimistic vision is a unified Superchain with both the scalability of parallel chains and the composability of a single blockchain. Native Interoperability coming to the Superchain can bring transformative benefits for all network participants, including shared upgrades and products that enhance security and efficiency.

Together, we can scale and decentralize more quickly and sustainably than if we do it alone. We’re grateful for all of the contributors who’ve shared our vision thus far, and look forward to growing the Superchain for years to come.

Soneium, by Sony Block Solutions Labs, is building an Ethereum Layer 2 using the OP Stack, designed to be a versatile, general-purpose blockchain, that empowers developers, creators and communities, and connects blockchain technology to everyday consumer applications in entertainment, gaming, and finance. It’s an exciting moment in the growth of Optimism and the evolution of the Superchain. By collaborating with this joint venture including Sony Group, one of the most recognizable brands in the world, Soneium and the Superchain are accelerating blockchain adoption like never before.

Soneium is planned to be a public, general-purpose network aimed at bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3 by nurturing creativity and openness.

By joining the Superchain, Soneium will become part of a network of chains that share a common codebase in the OP Stack and contribute revenue back to the Optimism Collective. That revenue fuels the sustainable development and growth of the entire Superchain ecosystem.

We’re excited that Soneium plans to find their home with the Superchain, building alongside some of the most innovative projects and skilled developers in the space. The Collective is mission-aligned to create efficient and accessible Ethereum-powered ecosystems to welcome the next wave of users. The Superchain is how we build and grow together.

Hands-On Access to Soneium Testnet

Soneium’s testnet will go live soon, providing developers hands-on access to an environment closely mirroring mainnet conditions. Soneium will support advanced smart contracts alongside scalable infrastructure for high-volume applications. Developers will also benefit from extensive documentation, third-party tools, and dedicated support channels.

Developers are invited to learn more about building on Soneium here.

Soneium and the Superchain Future

By committing to the Superchain, Soneium will join a group of values-aligned builders who are committed to scaling Ethereum together, with each team building towards something bigger than any one of them alone.

Startale will also transition its Astar zkEVM to the Soneium L2 chain, tapping into the strength of both ecosystems and the OP Stack to drive forward their vision. Astar Network’s community will play an important role in accelerating Soneium’s early adoption, and benefit from access to new applications on the network.

“Sony Block Solutions Labs, the joint venture between Sony Group and Startale chose to build with Optimism for its world-class tech, strong builder community, and thriving ecosystem,” shared Sota Watanabe, CEO at Startale and Director of Sony Block Solutions Labs. “We believe in Optimism’s vision for the Superchain and look forward to supporting it through governance and core development. Together, we will create the foundation that makes Web3 accessible to the masses.”

Superchain participants are united by the OP Stack, all benefiting greatly from this open source technology. Shared upgrades and a shared standard mean improvements made by each impact all.

By building on the OP Stack, Soneium benefits from scalability, composability, and low fees. Optimism’s ecosystem gets a share of network revenue generated by Soneium, and that revenue goes back to funding open source development and other ecosystem upgrades, benefitting builders and users alike. This economic model gives the Superchain the super power to scale Ethereum’s tech, via the OP Stack, and its values as a self-sustaining network.

As Optimism rolls out native interoperability for the Superchain, Soneium will be able to seamlessly interact with other OP Chains.

As we provide the infrastructure to fuel Soneium’s momentous blockchain launch, we look forward to working closely with their team to achieve our shared vision for the Superchain’s future.

From its inception, the Superchain was envisioned as a unified, cohesive network of chains. But what does this really mean? As Ethereum goes “multi-chain,” new challenges emerge, and it’s the Superchain’s mission to solve them.

Let’s talk about some of those challenges, and the upcoming steps to ensure that we scale together, not apart.

Growing the Superchain with clarity and confidence

The modular, open source nature of the OP Stack allows developers to customize their chain to suit their specific needs. Permissionless innovation is a superpower of the OP Stack, but it also introduces heterogeneity risk: different OP Stack configurations result in different security models, operation costs, and more. It's crucial for users and developers to understand these differences, so that they can make secure and informed decisions across the Superchain.

This year, we are doubling down on ensuring that tradeoffs made across the Superchain are as accessible, transparent, and reliable as possible. In particular, we are introducing the Superchain Registry – an information hub providing thorough actionable information for every chain in the Superchain. The Superchain Registry will provide a source of truth for the configuration, security, and policy choices made across the Superchain, making it easier to discover, assess, and utilize different chains.

In tandem, we’ll introduce Blockspace Charters–a powerful new framework which gives Optimism Governance the tools to make informed decisions about protocol upgrades, taking into account the potential differences between different kinds of chains, and grouping similar chains together.

The Superchain Registry will make it dead-simple for users and developers to know which chains are suitable for them. Blockspace Charters will allow Optimism Governance to implement protocol upgrades which apply specifically to chains that share a certain configuration, leveraging their specific security/cost tradeoffs for maximum benefit.

The story doesn’t end there. Being able to group different types of chains together, and guaranteeing their uniformity with shared upgrades, sets the stage for realizing another key piece of our vision for the Superchain.

Making the Superchain interoperable

As the number of chains increases, composability between applications is reduced. Moving assets between chains quickly and safely can be challenging; users need to find a bridge application, hope it works, and then potentially wait for lengthy time periods before assets are received on the other side. Beyond asset bridging, it’s incredibly difficult to build apps which coordinate across multiple networks, especially when they need to communicate quickly and securely.

In the Optimistic future, we envision a unified Superchain with both the scalability of parallel chains and the composability of a single blockchain. To accomplish this, we're building a native Interoperability standard which allows fault proofs over multiple chains at once. This facilitates secure, rapid cross-chain communication – significantly enhancing economic efficiency and unlocking new multi-chain application use cases – without introducing fundamentally new security assumptions.

To support this, we are enhancing the overall multi-chain development experience by designing a set of tools to empower app developers to deploy efficiently using native Interop. We will introduce a comprehensive multi-chain dev environment with the abstractions and reference implementations that developers need to get started building interoperable apps.

We are also developing frameworks for asynchronous communication to simplify the use of Interop capabilities and integrate relayers, intents, and more.

Advancing tech decentralization

Earlier this summer, we launched permissionless fault proofs on OP Mainnet, bringing the OP Stack to Stage 1 decentralization. Currently, other OP Stack chains are upgrading to include the fault proof functionality. By adhering to the OP Stack standard configuration, these chains can seamlessly benefit from upgrades, which brings them closer to native Interoperability, unlock the network effect, and move them towards true decentralization.

Furthering decentralization, we aim to build redundancy in our Fault Proof System by adding a second proof system. It will consist of a new open-source, Rust-based Fault Proof Program Kona and a new Fault Proof Virtual Machine Asterisc, built by OP Stack core contributors – the OP Labs team, the Reth team at Paradigm, and Sunnyside Labs.

Forging a superior infrastructure

By ensuring a certain level of homogeneity among all chains and enhancing composability with a native Interoperability standard, we are paving the way for a scalable decentralized compute platform. These efforts aim to ensure that the users, developers, and assets move seamlessly and securely across the Superchain, bringing us closer to our vision of a decentralized internet built on superior infrastructure.

We have many other features, improvements, and tools in the pipeline, but these are some of the big rocks you'll see moving.

Stay tuned, and, as always--

Stay Optimistic!

The permissionless Fault Proof System enables withdrawals of ETH and ERC-20 tokens from OP Mainnet to be initiated without involvement from any trusted third parties. It also means that invalid withdrawals can be challenged and removed by any user that wants to participate in the protocol. While participation in the Fault Proof System is permissionless, the Optimism Security Council retains the power to intervene and revert the system back to a permissioned state in the event of a failure in the system. Having this fallback is part of a responsible and safe rollout of the Fault Proof System, and we believe the Security Council meets the well-formed, industry-standard definition of Stage 1 from L2Beat.

However, the OP Stack does not arrive at Stage 1 with the implementation of fault proofs alone. Additional safeguards explicitly targeted at the system ensure the Security Council can act swiftly and effectively in the event of a bug. In the event that safeguards are activated, withdrawals will be reset, necessitating the reproving of all pending withdrawals. Security is the first consideration for everything built into the OP Stack, and these efforts, in conjunction with the fault proofs work, bring the OP Stack to Stage 1 capabilities.

Next stop: Stage 2

In 2022, Vitalik outlined a framework for how L2s could slowly remove their training wheels and move towards full decentralization. It’s common for L2 projects to launch early, at various stages of development, and kickstart  an ecosystem before the security model is fully permissionless. As projects progress, they can take off their training wheels and advance from Stage 0, to Stage 1, to eventually Stage 2 decentralization.

Now that we’re confident in the Stage 1 security model, and the Security Council’s ability to keep the system secure in all events has been thoroughly reviewed by core dev teams and some of the ecosystem’s most respected and diligent security auditors, working towards Stage 2 is the next step. Next up: the audit of the Dispute Game itself, taking place in July.

But looking ahead, we must progress beyond Stage 1.

L2s launch at various stages of development, and it’s common for these projects to build their ecosystem and strengthen their code in tandem. As projects mature, so does their code, and their progress towards decentralization also evolves. The safety measures or “training wheels” that were in place in the early stages are no longer necessary.

Launching fault proofs on OP Mainnet, extending the functionality to other OP Stack Chains in the Superchain ecosystem, and achieving Stage 1 decentralization are important milestones – but the endgame is Stage 2 decentralization.

Today’s Fault Proof System lays the groundwork for achieving “multi-proof nirvana” – like the OP Stack itself, it is open-source and modular by design. This framework aims to enable the OP Stack to support multiple proof systems, including zero knowledge proofs, alongside the current system, Cannon. Productionizing redundant proving schemes to secure withdrawals from OP Stack Chains back to Ethereum enables limiting the Security Council's role to only choosing between proofs in the event that they disagree.

The Fault Proof System was built and tested by core development teams from across the Superchain, like OP Labs, Base, and Sunnyside Labs. This collaborative approach has made this launch possible. The fault proof proposal was also approved by Optimism's Token House and Citizens' House, passing Optimism governance's two-step approval process.

In the coming months, we seek to roll out additional proof systems, including Asterisc and Kona, on testnet. Proving out the reliability and robustness of these redundant proof schemes will help the Superchain reach Stage 2 decentralization.

We’re celebrating the launch of fault proofs, and the OP Stack’s arrival at Stage 1, and feeling optimistic about the Superchain’s path towards realizing a fully decentralized future.

Our vision and the definition of the Superchain is expanding as a network of chains that share an open-source tech stack and contribute revenue to the Optimism Collective. We’re excited to share that those who build an L3 with the OP Stack can also join the Superchain. Like L2s, L3s can join the Superchain by building on the OP Stack and contributing a portion of their revenue back to the Collective. Chains that have committed to the Superchain not only have access to a values-aligned network of builders, but they’re also able to tap into a wide variety of benefits, including eligibility for Retro Funding, Airdrops, and Superchain developer grant programs. Although they are part of the Superchain, these chains deviate from standard configurations of the OP Stack, which will have an impact on how we can roll out features like interoperability to them. We will share more in the near future–but in the meantime, there has been a significant desire for L3s to want to build on OP Stack, and we want to embrace their enthusiasm for joining the ever-growing Superchain ecosystem.

As the Optimism ecosystem grows, so does the demand for flexible, customizable tech. Scalability is about making blockchain technology more accessible to more builders and consumers. If developers can build scalable applications, they can reach more users without excessively increasing their costs or needing to multiply their resources.

L3s can provide application developers and those who want to deploy their own blockchain with a new, more cost-effective way to build within the Superchain ecosystem. We’re already seeing this trend with Base, which has rapidly expanded support for L3s building on top of it.

Now, the entire Superchain ecosystem can benefit from Optimism’s commitment to the burgeoning L3 ecosystem, with even more developers able to leverage the power of the OP Stack. Today, we’re sharing how we’re supporting L3s.

Launching Custom Gas Tokens to Fuel L3s

One of the most highly requested features for L3s are custom gas tokens. This feature is in final development stages and will be rolled out soon.

Custom gas tokens are compelling because they allow developers to use an L2 token as the native gas token for an L3. Projects that have built communities around their existing L2 native token can now evolve their community into a thriving L3 ecosystem utilizing their token as the gas token. This also lowers onboarding costs for new users - rather than needing to onramp by performing an expensive L1 transaction depositing gas tokens into the L2, on-ramping to an L3 can be as simple as performing a cheap L2 deposit transaction into the L3.

Plasma Mode

Data availability (DA) layer optionality is another key building block for developers spinning up low-cost chains.

Even when using alternative DA layers, OP Stack chains must still post both data commitments and output roots to their settlement layer. Because L3s only have to submit transactions to L2 – this can be cheaper than having to submit to Ethereum Mainnet – the costs to submit data commitments and output roots can be reduced. This means that the fixed overhead cost to operate an L3 can be less than the fixed overhead cost to operate an L2.

Low overhead costs give L3 teams an even more accessible option for deploying on the OP Stack.

Just last week, Lattice launched Redstone, the first OP Stack Chain with Plasma Mode, an alternative data availability protocol (altDA) and a key feature for the OP Stack. The goal of Plasma Mode is to allow anyone to deploy an OP Stack Chain with the data availability layer of their choosing, sustainably reducing transaction costs while minimizing security tradeoffs. And for developers, Plasma Mode unlocks high-throughput applications with no need for a new programming language.

Plasma Mode development continues, with a focus on integrating multiple data availability layers. We expect L3s to experiment heavily with Plasma Mode.

L3s and the Superchain Future

Looking ahead, this opens a framework for L3 developers to participate in the Superchain ecosystem by helping to shape the future of scalability, while benefiting from the contributions of other builders as well.

We see L3s as an important part of making the Superchain accessible to development teams with varying needs and resources. Supporting key features that empower developers to spin up L3s is an important part of our roadmap.

For developers building on the OP Stack, it’s choose your own adventure: deploy your dapp on an OP Stack Chain, launch your own dedicated L2 or L3 network, or work with an infrastructure partner, or RaaS provider to build your blockchain.

The Superchain is home to a deep well of resources for Web3 developers of all stripes, and we’re excited to welcome L3s into the fold.

Today, Redstone Mainnet is officially live and part of the Superchain, making it easy for anyone to build and deploy onchain games and autonomous worlds.

This is the culmination of a year-long development process to build a chain that would support autonomous worlds and MUD applications.

Joining the Superchain means that Redstone will enjoy the benefits of scalability and low fees, while contributing revenue back to the Optimism Collective to power open source development and a self-sustaining ecosystem. Developers building on Redstone will also be eligible for Retro Funding and can easily interact with other chains like Base, Mode, OP Mainnet and Zora.

Redstone, the first OP Stack Chain featuring Plasma Mode

Not only is this an exciting moment for the growth of the Superchain; it also marks the first deployment of Plasma Mode, an alternative data availability protocol (altDA) and a key feature for the OP Stack developed jointly by Lattice and OP Labs.

Historically, OP Stack Chains have relied on the Ethereum Mainnet for data availability. Now with Plasma Mode, anyone can deploy an OP Stack Chain with the data availability layer of their choosing, greatly reducing transaction costs while maintaining security.

For developers, Plasma Mode unlocks high-throughput applications with no need for a new programming language. It’s useful for a variety of onchain applications, including games which require speed and scalability.

A win for core development

Lattice is a core developer of the OP Stack and is closely aligned with Optimism and its vision for the Superchain, a growing network of L2s that share security, a communication layer, and an open source tech stack.

Lattice built Redstone and Plasma Mode after realizing that applications built with MUD, its Retro-Funded engine for onchain applications, would struggle to scale if deployed on traditional L2s, which are not optimized for the data usage and throughput required for most applications.

During the Race to Mainnet, Lattice collaborated with their launch teams to battle-test everything from user onboarding to UX to indexing to uptime.

Now, Plasma Mode is ready to be tested out by other OP Stack Chains – a win for core development and the Optimism Collective.

Plasma: We’re so back

Late last year Vitalik wrote about why the time is right to re-explore Plasma design as a means to simplify the developer experience. OP Labs and Lattice had already seen the vision, and took it to heart by building out Plasma Mode and preparing it for Redstone and other OP Stack Chains.

As gaming continues to be an important onramp for blockchain developers and end-users alike, we see Redstone as a key part of the Superchain and Plasma Mode as a significant new feature.

To find out more about Redstone and the games it supports, check out their community site.

Now, as the largest application on OP Mainnet, Worldcoin is graduating to its own dedicated network. Today, the core contributors to the Worldcoin protocol are introducing World Chain: a new blockchain built on the OP Stack and designed to bring all humans onchain. World Chain marks a major milestone for both the Worldcoin protocol and the Optimism Collective.

One of the main challenges in crypto today is that many transactions are made by bots, leading to congested networks and high fees which ultimately stifle the industry’s potential. World Chain aims to solve this by prioritizing transactions made by verified humans using World ID. Prioritizing verified humans over bots on the open and permissionless chain will help increase capacity so that people can join at scale and enjoy fast, inexpensive, and reliable transactions.

Initiatives like this are fast tracked by the OP Stack, and demonstrate the Superchain’s many launchpads for ambitious builders with bold ideas.

The Superchain: A Sustainable Economic Model

Projects like Worldcoin leverage the OP Stack to build on a shared standard blockchain software, and reap the benefits of scalability and low fees from building on the OP Stack. Optimism’s ecosystem gets a share of the revenue generated by chains, including World Chain, and that revenue goes back to funding open source development and other improvements to the network, benefitting builders and users alike. This economic model gives the Superchain the super power to scale Ethereum’s tech, via the OP Stack, and its values as a self-sustaining network.

By joining the Superchain, World Chain also benefits by being able to interact with other chains like Base, Mode, OP Mainnet, and Zora. Developers supporting Worldcoin continue to contribute directly to the Ethereum network, and collaborate with the Superchain ecosystem on shared infrastructure. Following the lead of early OP Chains, World Chain also plans to actively participate in Optimism’s governance.

Proving Humanness Onchain

The heart of Worldcoin’s vision is to bring all humans onchain. Optimism has collaborated with Worldcoin’s core contributors to put new digital identity tools into practice, allowing developers to use their World ID to access funds on the Superchain faucet.

The Optimism Collective envisions a future where the digital identity ecosystem expands, enabling people to signal their contributions to governance, DeFi, social media, gaming and beyond. Together, Optimism and Worldcoin are committed to a scalable, inclusive future that unlocks onchain identity and builds a more equitable digital economy for all.

World Chain is expected to launch later this summer. In the meantime, learn more about Optimism’s vision and the Superchain here.

Retro Funding is not merely a charitable endeavor; it's building an impact system where contributions are valued and rewarded.

The Collective has allocated 850M OP to Retro Funding, which goes towards rewarding onchain impact across Optimism, and the Superchain. For clarity, 850M OP is the total amount allocated to Retro Funding from the initial token supply.  Stay tuned, we'll announce allocation details closer to each upcoming round!

New era for Retro Funding

As the next iteration of Retro Funding, we're excited to announce a new era of clarity. By delineating specific categories of contributions, we're creating a framework that makes it easier to understand what impact will be rewarded, thus fostering a more purposeful and targeted approach to development.

So, what exactly does this change entail? Retro Funding will now operate through specifically targeted, and categorized rounds and we will continue to iterate as we gather more and more learnings. Below you’ll find an overview of Retro rounds planned for 2024. More details will follow for each specific round!

Each round will focus on distinct category-specific contributions, providing clarity and direction for anyone seeking to make an impact. Whether it's enhancing scalability, improving security, or fostering community engagement, contributors will know exactly what type of impact is being rewarded, and when.

Retro Funding 4: Onchain Builders

This category will reward onchain builders who contribute to the success of Optimism. This round seeks to expand the reach and impact of the network by rewarding those building across the Superchain, increasing demand for blockspace, and driving value to the Collective. This includes builders who bring new users to the Superchain, drive network effects and protocol usage.

Submit your application: May 2024

Retro Funding 5: OP Stack

The OP Stack is the heart of Optimism, and the Superchain. Contributions to the OP Stack and improvements to the foundational elements of Optimism's infrastructure will be rewarded in this round. From protocol enhancements to optimization initiatives, this round focuses on strengthening the core components that underpin the Optimism platform. Some examples of recent contributions to the OP stack have brought huge value to Optimism EIP-4844,  Span Batches, fault proof alpha, and development and maintenance of client implementations like op-reth, op-nethermind, and op-erigon.

Submit your application: August 2024

Retro Funding 6: Governance

Improving the capture resistance and resource allocation of Optimism Governance is the primary objective of this category. By incentivizing contributions that enhance governance tools, mechanisms, and processes, Retro Funding aims to foster a more robust and resilient governance framework within the ecosystem.

This round will focus on rewarding key governance infrastructure that enables continued decentralization, as well as research and analytics tools that provide valuable insights into governance design.

Submit your application: August 2024

Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling

Supporting Optimism builders with developer tooling is the focus of this category. From SDKs to testing frameworks, contributions that streamline the development process and empower builders will be rewarded, ensuring a more efficient and productive development environment.

Submit your application: October 2024

Who is eligible for Retro Funding?

Retro Funding rewards a diverse set of categories across protocol and infrastructure development, end user experiences, adoption, governance improvements, and work towards improving the OP Stack.

Every Base project is eligible for Retro Funding, every Mode project is eligible for Retro Funding, every Zora project is eligible for Retro Funding, every Farcaster project is eligible for Retro Funding, every sound.xyz project is eligible for Retro Funding, every OP Chain is eligible for Retro Funding, everyone, anywhere putting the work in to improve Optimism is eligible for Retro Funding.

This network of contributors will continue to grow as more chains join the Superchain! Remember, contributing to the Superchain gives you and your users access to airdrops, and Retro Funding.

Get inspired to build

Knowing where to start building can be overwhelming. Don’t worry though, we have you covered! Head over to the Builder Ideas to see a curated list of Collective aligned project ideas, ranging from developer tooling to protocol experiments, and much more! These ideas have no guaranteed rewards, however by building them you may have a positive impact you can use to apply for Reto Funding.

Choose an idea from the list, build it, create impact, and you might get rewarded via Retro Funding for your impact!

If you are looking for a grant, you can find available grants here.

Building a fair internet

In essence, Retro Funding is not just about rewarding contributions—it's about building a fair, and more inclusive internet for all. Retro Funding is building an impact system, not a charity.

You can find more about the design decisions behind the next iteration of Retroactive Public Goods Funding, and share your thoughts and impressions, on the governance forum.

With four defined rounds in 2024, Retro Funding sets the stage for a more focused and impactful approach to incentivizing contributions. By aligning contributions with the broader goals of the ecosystem and providing clarity and transparency, we are empowering builders to shape the future of Optimism and drive meaningful change in the digital landscape. Together, let's build an impact-driven system where everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the design of the new internet.

And, as always,Stay Optimistic! 🔴✨