By Jonah Roberts, Bankless Author/Researcher
Translation: Golden Finance xiaozou
Ethereum L2 has always been a chaotic battlefield. For many years, the top L2s have been competing fiercely to attract developers to build their applications in their respective interconnected ecosystems.
The dust has settled, and top development teams continue to choose Optimism Superchain.
This article will analyze the main projects developed and built on OP Stack and why Superchain has won the favor of developers.
1. Optimisim Superchain Market Positioning
In a competitive block space market where many blockchains offer similar services, securing market share requires more than just good technology, but also innovative use cases and strategic growth. Optimism has done a great job in this regard, using a top-notch business development model to turn Superchain from a bold name into a truly dominant reality.
While the total value locked (TVL) on OP’s mainnet still lags behind competitors like Arbitrum and Polygon, the superchain is still outperforming thanks in large part to Base, whose TVL recently surpassed Arbitrum, according to DefiLlama.
While Arbitrum and other L2s attempt to expand the interconnected blockchain ecosystem, their success has been relatively limited compared to Optimism.
This is because the Superchain has incredible network effects and it seems to have truly won the meme war and become a prime location for on-chain development.
This doesn’t entirely diminish the importance of other L2s, which will continue to play a major role in scaling Ethereum, but it’s important to note that OP Stack has clearly become the de facto development venue for the industry’s biggest players.
2. Superchain projects that need attention
Optimism’s modular design has enabled some of the industry’s largest players to create impactful products under the Superchain umbrella. A recent example is World Chain, a Superchain launched by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Web3 initiative World (formerly WorldCoin).
World Chain is designed to be a verifiable real person network. It may be the most advanced identity system in Web3 to date. World Chain already has 7 million unique address users, enough to verify this. As of August, there are more unique address wallets holding 20 USD of WLD tokens than the total number of unique address wallets holding 20 USD of USDC in all Ethereum networks.
Another recent heavyweight to join the Superchain is Uniswap, which has launched Unichain, a dedicated rollup designed to be the liquidity center of the Superchain. As the largest DEX in the cryptocurrency space, Uniswap processes trillions of dollars in trading volume for millions of users. By consolidating liquidity within the Superchain, Unichain aims to eliminate the inefficiencies caused by the fragmented liquidity between different chains, indicating that the Uniswap Foundation believes that the Superchain will be the gathering place for most user activity.
And then there is Base, Coinbase’s most ambitious on-chain project. Known for its lightning-fast transactions and sub-1 cent fees, Base has quickly become the go-to choice for dApps and developers. Base’s exponential growth has significantly boosted adoption of the superchain, demonstrating the power of network effects. The network’s exponential growth is one of the most important crypto narratives of the year and is expected to continue to play a central role in the future.
Finally, let’s look at Kraken. Just this week, Kraken announced the launch of their own brand new L2 called Ink. Ink seems to be a direct competitor to Base, but in the long run, both are beneficial to the development of the entire Superchain ecosystem.
3. Optimism’s Vision and Philosophy
Optimism's mission is described as "forking capitalism," a vision of finance that emphasizes better value alignment and accounting responsibility. This philosophy is reflected in the design and governance of the network, which is led by the Optimism community. The network's inclusive architecture and open source principles support a decentralized economy where participants collectively set the rules. This vision challenges the traditional centralized profit-driven model by providing a model that prioritizes community ownership and inclusivity.
In addition, the economic model of this Superchain is designed to create shared incentives between all chains on the OP Stack. Optimsim and its OP tokens directly benefit from a revenue sharing model in which part of the fees generated by activities on a single chain such as Base or Ink will flow back to the main network. This optional framework ensures that the growth of some Superchain rollups contributes to the growth of the entire ecosystem, turning potential competition into cooperation.
This revenue sharing model not only scales Ethereum’s technology, but also aligns with the network’s principles of decentralization and sustainable growth. By enabling each chain to contribute to the economic vitality of the ecosystem, Optimism is positioned to grow with the evolving network.
4. Future prospects
It is undeniable that Optimism Superchain is the current leader in L2 scaling, but we are still in the early stages of rollups. Major non-Web3 players are still in the early stages of exploring on-chain possibilities, leaving room for other players to capture market share and challenge the narrative in the coming years.
As the network effects of this Superchain continue to expand, it will become increasingly difficult for other players to attract new activity elsewhere - especially as the next wave of users gain access to a unified Superchain user experience. Optimism’s current growth lays the foundation for long-term dominance in the Ethereum ecosystem.
