Written by Frank, Foresight News
From June to date, 11 projects have announced the launch of related L2 networks based on OP Stack, with new projects accounting for more than half.
Since June, the expansion momentum of the OP Stack ecosystem has accelerated significantly. In two and a half months, 11 new projects have announced the launch of related L2 networks based on OP Stack, accounting for 57% of the current 19 projects in the OP Stack ecosystem (incomplete statistics).
As an open source modular toolkit launched by Optimism, OP Stack allows developers to use the OP Stack toolkit to assemble a customized Layer2 network according to their own needs, thereby connecting to the Ethereum network and sharing resources. It has also become the biggest dark horse of "one-click chain launch + modularization" this year.
Currently, OP Stack has a very large circle of friends. In addition to star projects such as Base, opBNB, and Worldcoin, there are also some old Layer1 public chains that hope to turn to the Ethereum Layer2 track through OP Stack.
OP Stack "Crazy Growth"
Here, this article sorts out the projects that have joined or plan to join the OP Stack super chain ecosystem in chronological order of project release. Overall, OP Stack's expansion can be said to be blooming in all directions, with a total of 19 projects covering exchanges, public chains, clients, NFTs, games, derivatives and many other fields.
OPCraft
On October 18, 2022, on-chain game developer Lattice launched OPCraft, a dedicated on-chain virtual world game chain based on OP Stack. Developers can achieve higher throughput and shorter block time through simple debugging.
Base
On February 23 this year, Coinbase launched the Layer2 network Base built on OP Stack. On July 13, the mainnet was opened to builders, and on August 9, the Base mainnet was also launched and officially open to everyone.
Currently, Base has more than 100 DApps and service providers, and is deeply integrated with the Coinbase product ecosystem. As of the time of writing, the total locked value of the Base network has just reached US$200 million, a surge of 68.89% in 7 days, accounting for 1.9% of the Layer2 network.
This is second only to Arbitrum (55.98%), Optimism (26.81%), zkSync (4.14%), and dYdX (3.15%), and is ahead of a number of star Layer2 projects such as Starknet and Immutable X.
Currently, Base is also the undisputed "leader" in Optimism's OP Stack superchain ecosystem. It is estimated that Base alone can bring an additional $4.5 million in income to the OP treasury each year.
Kinto
On March 30, Kinto, a KYC DeFi network built on OP Stack, was officially launched. It focuses on providing secure and insured decentralized financial services, and the testnet is currently in operation.
UniDex
On April 2, multi-chain aggregator Unidex launched the Magma testnet built on OP Stack, aiming to provide secure and fast transactions with low gas costs. It also plans to gradually migrate UniDex's product ecosystem to the Magma network.
Magi
On April 19, a16z Crypto launched the OP Stack-based Rollup client "Magi", which is written in Rust. It replaces the consensus client (Rollup client) in OP Stack and works with execution clients (such as op-geth) for synchronization. It aims to improve the client diversity and resilience of the entire OP Stack ecosystem.
Currently Magi is still in a very early stage and no further news on the project progress has been released. It may take several months of development time to become a viable alternative to op-node.
op-erigon
On April 20, Test in Prod developed an alternative execution client op-erigon based on OP Stack, which is currently being tested on OP Goerli, allowing users to test it in the GitHub repository or in the OP Goerli public RPC in Prod, and will eventually be released to the OP mainnet.
Worldcoin
On May 11, World App, the crypto project Worldcoin eco-wallet co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced that it will migrate from Polygon to the Optimism mainnet, and the World ID protocol will also be available on the OP mainnet.
Subsequently, the Worldcoin Foundation and Tools for Humanity, a major software contributor to Worldcoin, announced a partnership with the Optimism Collective to jointly build a scalable blockchain ecosystem based on the OP Stack. In addition, Worldcoin ID announced that it would build an application chain based on the OP Stack and build an ecosystem around the on-chain identity system.
Therefore, after the issuance of WLD tokens on July 24, it directly boosted Optimism's on-chain daily transaction volume to over 800,000, surpassing Arbitrum and setting a new historical high.
Keystone
On May 31, Curio officially open-sourced L2 Chain Keystone, a full-chain game engine customized based on OP Stack. It uses custom pre-compilation to build game ticks and ECS into the chain, which can increase the speed of on-chain games by 100 times and provide a more powerful gaming experience.
opBNB
On June 19, BNB Chain announced the launch of the opBNB testnet, a Layer2 network based on OP Stack. By adopting OP Stack Rollup, opBNB can move computing and state storage off-chain, thereby alleviating congestion and reducing transaction costs.
Zora Network
On June 22, the NFT trading market Zora launched the Layer2 network Zora Network based on OP Stack, and seamlessly integrated it with the existing infrastructure of the Zora market.
Artists, brands and collectors can seamlessly join the new Layer2 network, including 35 Web3 project entities and more than 100,000 users including the music NFT platform Sound.XYZ, wallet application Rainbow Wallet, Web 3.0 innovation incubator Seed Club and PleasrDAO.
Loot Chain
On June 28, the Loot ecosystem project Adventure Gold DAO adopted OP Stack to build the Layer2 network Loot Chain to reduce Gas fees, and used its own native token AGLD as the Gas Token.
In addition, the chain also uses Polygon as a data availability layer, thereby reducing the construction, deployment and operation costs of Loot Chain.
Pacific Blanket
On July 12, the ZK-based Layer1 public chain Manta Network launched Manta Pacific, a Layer2 network based on OP Stack designed for zero-knowledge proof (ZK) applications, and renamed its Layer1 network Manta to Manta Atlantic.
Manta Pacific uses the Celestia data availability layer to provide security, reduce gas fees, and achieves scalability through Caldera's improved OP Stack.
Mantle Network
On July 17, Mantle Network, a modular Ethereum Layer 2 network built on OP Stack and supported by BitDAO and Bybit, launched the mainnet Alpha version. Mantle Network said that after six months of development and testing, it processed more than 14 million on-chain transactions during this period.
Forehead
On July 17, Celo development organization cLabs proposed to transform Celo from an independent EVM-compatible Layer1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer2 based on OP Stack, including an off-chain data availability layer powered by EigenLayer and EigenDA, operated by Ethereum node operators and protected by re-pledged ETH, enabling Celo to maintain low fees.
Then on July 31, the heat check governance proposal to migrate Celo to Ethereum’s L2 architecture was voted through.
Age
Aevo, a decentralized options exchange developed by Ribbon, is built on Aevo Chain, which runs on OP Stack.
On July 25, the proposal to merge Ribbon Finance into Aevo was passed. It is planned to merge Ribbon Finance into Aevo and make Aevo the only brand name. In addition, it is planned to abolish the original token RBN and launch a new token AEVO.
In the future, Ribbon's products will be integrated into Aevo's structured product suite, and the original RBN tokens will be exchanged for AEVO at a 1:1 ratio.
Public Goods Network
On July 25, the Public Goods Network (PGN), a Layer2 network based on OP Stack and supported by Gitcoin and others, went online on the mainnet. According to the plan, six months after the network is launched, PGN will evaluate and allocate fees based on accumulated data.
Additionally, Gitcoin Grants 18 will run on PGN, with the donation round taking place from August 15 to 29, 2023, and applications opening on August 1.
Lyra Finance
On July 28, the options protocol Lyra Finance announced that it will launch version V2. The highlights of this version include the launch of the customized Ethereum Rollup "Lyra Chain" built on OP Stack, which aims to support high throughput, low latency and low-cost transaction execution.
Mode Network
On August 7, Mode Network, built on OP Stack, launched a public testnet. It designed contract revenue sharing incentives at the protocol layer. Applications and users that expand the Mode blockchain will directly receive a portion of the network sequencer's profits. It aims to develop the Mode and superchain ecosystem by incentivizing and directly rewarding developers, users, and protocols.
Debank
On August 11, DeBank launched the DeBank Chain testnet built on OP Stack and plans to launch the mainnet in 2024. The DeBank Chain testnet modified the consensus mechanism to reduce the gas fee for a single transaction by 100 to 400 times.
In addition, Metis and Boba are built based on the underlying code of Optimism and are, to some extent, members of the Optimism ecosystem family.
The “ultimate” growth point of Optimism?
The narrative of the Optimism superchain is actually not new. Cosmos and others have been working on the direction of "one-click chain launch + modularization" for a long time. However, compared with OP Stack, which has attracted many big names since its launch, the Cosmos application chain has performed lukewarmly this year.
Whether from the perspective of the development of ecological partners or the actual performance of various dimensions of data on the chain, OP Stack seems to have become a new growth point for Optimism.
It should be noted that in the early stages of the development of the Optimism network, it was almost entirely based on the Synthetix ecosystem, which resulted in it lacking a strong foothold in its competition with Arbitrum, and it has always lagged far behind.
For example, in addition to Synthetix, there are also applications such as Kwenta, a derivatives trading platform based on Synthetix (launched on July 30, 2021), and Lyra, an options protocol on the Synthetix ecosystem chain (launched on August 25, 2021). Among other native top applications, only Velodrome is at the forefront of the ecosystem (recommended reading "Optimism Data Inventory, Does Token Issuance Really Make It "OP"? ").
After Arbitrum went online on September 2, 2021, its TVL surged to US$1 billion to US$3.5 billion within a month, far surpassing Optimism, which has long hovered around hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, Optimism has since seized two opportunities to catch up:
First, in May last year, thanks to the OP airdrop and incentive plan, Optimism achieved a leap forward in cross-chain bridge TVL, ecosystem TVL, head protocol, and community attention, narrowing the gap with Artibrum, but did not form a complete turnaround. The subsequent coin issuance of Arbtrium also offset the "coin issuance bonus" to a certain extent.
The second is the new narrative of the OP Stack super chain. Optimism seems to have finally found a new and effective path for differentiated competition, which enables it to truly gain a foothold in the competition with Arbitrum and not fall behind.
In particular, the support of partners such as Base, opBNB, and Worldcoin not only gives the Optimism super chain ecosystem a strong brand endorsement, but also provides a source of vitality for Optimism's continued growth in users, transaction volume, etc. in the future.
As OP Stack attracts more and more developers, project parties, and communities, Optimism seems to have the hope of creating a prosperous ecosystem with an explosion of various use cases in DeFi applications, NFT, GameFi, etc.
In the most direct data dimension, the TVL of the Optimism network has increased from US$1.9 billion to US$3 billion since mid-June, an increase of more than 50%, which is about 50% lower than Arbitrum's US$5 billion. They are at the same order of magnitude, and the distance between the two is no longer measured in "several times".
"Relying on the Synthetix ecosystem in the early stage and leveraging the OP Stack universe in the later stage", OP Stack is building its own "super chain ecological narrative".
