Compilation: Plain Language Blockchain

The era of L2 Rollup is coming, and the activity on Ethereum L2 has reached its highest level in history. The average transactions per second (TPS) on L2 has surpassed Ethereum since the end of 2022.

In the latest wave of L2 releases, many have used the OP Stack, an open-source software development OP Stack that supports Ethereum L2, the OP mainnet, and new participants like Base and Zora Network. Optimism envisions combining these Rollups with numerous other Rollups to form a decentralized L2 chain network, or a superchain.

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This article delves into the OP Stack and superchain theory, and then explores the evolving OP Stack ecosystem, including Base, Zora Network, DeBank Chain, and more. In addition, it discusses infrastructure solutions that allow developers and builders from various backgrounds to access this range of OP Stack chains.

About Optimism

Optimism is the company behind the OP mainnet, and it is an Optimism Rollup similar to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It has been running since 2021 and is one of the leading Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. As of the time of this report, the total value locked (TVL) on the OP mainnet has exceeded $2.6 billion, making it the second largest in terms of market capitalization among all Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, with a market share of over 25%.

In October 2022, Optimism introduced the OP Stack, which is a “highly scalable, highly interoperable suite of modular open-source blueprints.” It also introduced the concept of a “superchain,” which refers to a highly integrated and unified Layer 2 blockchain grouping built on the OP Stack. The next major development is migrating their L2 Rollup to Bedrock.

Optimism’s short development timeline so far

OP Stack is a standardized, shared, and open-source development OP Stack that supports the OP mainnet. It consists of various software components that build Optimism’s L2 Rollup, creating a shared, interoperable, and collaborative L2 blockchain network. OP Stack aims to simplify the construction of L2 blockchains, similar to a “supermarket for building L2,” allowing builders to easily modify or create modules to meet their specific needs.

Builders can modify existing modules or create new ones to fit their needs, and OP Stack deconstructs and packages different building L2 components into independent modules. Ultimately, Optimism expects highly compatible L2s, called OP chains, to be part of a superchain.

The superchain theory is Optimism’s vision to upgrade its ecosystem into a superchain. The superchain is envisioned as a decentralized network of L2 chains (OP chains) that share security, communication layer, and open-source technology Stack (OP Stack). These chains will be standardized and used as interchangeable resources to enhance chain interoperability.

This standardization will allow builders to create applications that target the entire superchain, rather than just applications running on the underlying chain. It is important to note that the superchain is still a concept and is being continuously improved.

Superchain illustration

A Growing OP Stack Ecosystem

Since the release of Bedrock in June 2023, we have seen many Rollup-based projects built on top of the OP Stack. Next, we will take a closer look at some of these standout projects and major infrastructure projects.

By quickly browsing the table below, we can see that Base is leading in terms of development. In fact, Base’s cumulative unique address count is even higher than that of the OP mainnet. The Onchain Summer events by Base, as well as its integration with Coinbase, may be key factors contributing to these relatively high numbers.

Please note that only the OP mainnet, Base, Zora Network, and Public Product Network are on the mainnet, while the other three projects we cover are still in the testing phase.

(1) Notable Projects

• Base

Base is one of the first announced OP Stack L2s (originally in February 2023) and launched their public mainnet on August 9th. Base is a general-purpose L2 and is the most popular OP Stack chain after the OP mainnet.

The Onchain Summer was a month-long release event that coincided with Base’s launch and attracted multiple partners, including Coca-Cola, to jointly launch NFT Mints. This event attracted over 268,000 unique wallets from 75 unique collections, generating over 700,000 Mints. Base’s close association with Coinbase allows for multiple integrations, providing convenient access for Coinbase users. Base has also launched over 100 dApps, and its ecosystem continues to grow.

In addition, friend.tech is an emerging SocialFi platform that allows users to trade tokenized “keys” and has attracted a large user base and trading volume. However, it is still in the testing phase and future growth may require attracting non-crypto and Web2 users.

After the initial hype in mid-August, friend.tech’s daily transactions slowed down significantly until recently when it heated up again.

Base’s ecosystem fund is led by Coinbase Ventures and focuses on supporting early-stage projects, including DeFi, fiat on/off-ramp, and creator platforms. Additionally, the Base team has released Pessimism, an open-source monitoring system aimed at enhancing the security of OP Stack and other EVM-compatible chains, with a focus on detecting protocol threats and mitigating security risks.

Since the launch of the mainnet in early August, Base’s user metrics have shown significant growth throughout September.

Based on the collaboration between Optimism and Base, they have reached an economic agreement where Base will donate 2.5% of the total revenue or 15% of the net profit to Optimism. They also have the opportunity to win up to $118 million worth of OP Tokens in the next six years. Although not explicitly announced, other OP Stack chains may also have similar revenue sharing agreements with Optimism, demonstrating the importance of collective contributions to the infrastructure of the superchain.

• Zora Network

Zora Network is a decentralized and permissionless protocol that allows anyone to buy, sell, and create NFTs. Additionally, they have launched their own OP Stack Layer 2 network to support users and reduce platform costs.

They launched their mainnet on June 21, 2022, providing a better user experience for NFT transactions, as the cost of creating NFTs is less than $0.5 and offering many free Mint options. Compared to Ethereum, OP Stack has a block time of only 2 seconds, enabling Zora Network’s transactions to be confirmed within seconds.

In addition, Zora Network has successfully raised a total of $60 million in three rounds of funding, including a $50 million financing led by Haun Ventures in 2022, bringing the company’s valuation to $600 million. These funds will help drive the development and growth of Zora Network in the NFT space.

Since late July, Zora’s user metrics have been steadily growing

• Public Goods Network

The Public Goods Network (PGN) is an L2 protocol designed to support public goods. Public goods refer to non-excludable and non-rivalrous products or services, such as parks, libraries, and road infrastructure. In the digital realm, they can include open-source software, permissionless data, and AI models. PGN’s development is led by Gitcoin and SuperModular and has received support from multiple public goods advocates, forming the Public Goods Alliance responsible for managing and organizing PGN.

PGN operates in a way where the majority of net sequencing fees will be used to support public goods projects, so as activity on L2 increases, funds for public goods projects will also increase. PGN aims to attract various types of dApps to deploy on its L2, not limited to projects related to public goods. PGN plans to evaluate its fees within the six months before January 2024 and allocate them to public goods projects, with more details to be announced in the coming weeks.

In addition, PGN plans to leverage Contractually Secured Revenue (CSR) after October 2023, which will allow developers to collect a certain percentage of fees from transactions generated by their contracts and support them in creating sustainable business models. CSR may become part of a broader L2 network, and there have even been Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) proposing the introduction of CSR on the L2 of the EVM.

The user metrics of PGN have steadily increased in August. Although the addition of accounts in September has slowed down, the transactions continue to rise.

• Mode

Mode is positioned to support a high-growth L2 network and empower users and developers to build world-class applications and expand the ecosystem through direct rewards. In achieving this goal, revenue sharing incentives play a critical role.

Running an L2 network requires maintaining a sequencer, which is responsible for ordering, processing, and delivering L2 transactions to the L1 main chain. Typically, the transaction fees paid by users go to the DAO or the sequencer operator. Mode’s goal is to distribute these sequencing fees to the network’s developers and users, rather than the company.

Developers based on Mode will receive a portion of the income from Mode’s sequencer, depending on the transaction fees they charge in the deployed contracts. These fees are paid in US dollars and settled every two weeks. This allows developers to directly benefit from their work, helping to establish a predictable and scalable Web3 business model.

Mode encourages users, developers, and protocols to refer new members to share a portion of the transaction fee revenue. They also provide support for developers to build applications and offer integrated development tools. Mode is developing a developer dashboard to provide key metrics and insights to help developers scale more easily. They also plan to integrate multiple external tools and services to help developers build sustainable businesses. Lastly, Mode takes a governance-minimized approach, only requiring the DAO to vote on a few key issues, including the allocation of sequencing fee revenue.

Mode has close to 4 million transactions and over 36,000 independent accounts

Mode is currently on the public testnet and is expected to continue until the end of September. The mainnet is expected to launch in Q4 2023.

• DeBank

DeBank is a Web3 portfolio tracking protocol that offers various products, including portfolio tracking systems, social networking services, and NFTs. DeBank Chain is their L2 chain based on the OP Stack, and is expected to launch in 2024.

The core goal of DeBank Chain is to reduce the transaction costs of user interaction within the DeBank ecosystem. By modifying the consensus mechanism, the gas cost of individual transactions has been lowered to better meet the high-frequency social interaction needs. In addition, DeBank Chain also has a built-in account abstraction feature and generates protocol revenue. Since the launch of the testnet on August 11th, DeBank Chain has recorded over 2.1 million transactions, covering over 50,000 unique wallet addresses. Additionally, DeBank has attracted over 250,000 registered users.

• Ancient8 and Ancient8 Chain

Ancient8 has been operating as a gaming guild and aims to help gamers enter the Web3 world through collaborations with over 100 games. They have introduced Ancient8 Chain, which is an Ethereum L2 solution focusing on gaming. The testnet of this chain was launched on September 15th. Ancient8’s vision is to establish a complete gaming ecosystem, including NFT sales, game community building, game identity and credential creation, and project marketing. They have also set up Ancient8 Collective, consisting of 8 core partners, to jointly build the Ancient8 Chain ecosystem. This project has raised $10 million in funding.

Although the testnet of Ancient8 Chain has only been launched for a few days, it has already recorded over 2 million transactions involving nearly 5,000 independent accounts. These statistics demonstrate the popularity and growth momentum of Ancient8 Chain in the Web3 gaming field.

The testnet of Ancient8 Chain is still in the early stage

(2) Infrastructure

• Conduit

Conduit is a Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform that allows developers to easily launch their own OP Stack rollup. The Conduit team operates and maintains the rollup, so developers can focus on building products instead of dealing with infrastructure.

Since its mainnet launch in March 2023, many different OP Stack chains, including Zora Network, Public Product Network, Ancient8 Chain, and Mode, have chosen to collaborate with Conduit to launch their products.

Conduit is a solution that helps to easily launch and manage OP Stack L2 Rollup. Developers can create their own L2 in minutes, including block explorers, transaction trackers, and auto-scalable RPC. In addition, Conduit automatically updates the L2 for each partner and integrates with the Optimism superchain, and also supports the Optimism Good Fund with a portion of the fees.

Conduit’s integration allows partners to connect to other infrastructure projects such as Zora Network and Axelar, enhancing Conduit’s integrated infrastructure and making rollups easier to scale for a larger user base.

Conduit has raised $7 million in seed funding, led by LianGuairadigm.

• AltLayer

AltLayer is a RaaS protocol that allows developers to launch Optimism Rollup. It supports multiple chains and multiple virtual machines, including EVM, WASM, Solana VM, and Move VM, among others. Unlike Conduit, AltLayer supports various software development platforms. AltLayer is currently in the testnet phase.

AltLayer’s products include a no-code dashboard that allows users to create custom L2 Rollups in minutes, as well as a Rollup SDK for developers who want to directly integrate Rollup services into their own products. AltLayer also provides a shared sequencer set, making cross-chain atomic transactions and messaging with other L2s launched with AltLayer possible.

AltLayer provides a core network called the Beacon Layer, which serves as an intermediate layer between the execution layer and the data availability layer of L2. The Beacon Layer supports various aggregation SDKs, data availability solutions, sequencer sets, and interoperability platforms, increasing the flexibility and interoperability of Rollups.

The Flash Layer is a one-time application-specific Rollup that is particularly useful for high-traffic activities such as NFT Minting, mini-games, and more. AltLayer also offers a standard Optimism Rollup as part of its platform, which is more suitable for long-term applications such as GameFi and SocialFi.

AltLayer raised $7.2 million in seed funding in 2022, led by Polychain Capital.

AltLayer’s general Rollup OP Stack supports multiple protocols.

Summary

We are witnessing a surge in various computation stack chains, including general L2s like Base and Mode, as well as specialized chains like Zora Network, DeBank Chain, and Ancient8 Chain.

New features such as Conduit integration are simplifying the deployment and scalability of OP Stack Rollups, providing possibilities for more L2 Rollups based on this stack. The combination of Conduit with the uniqueness of OP Stack, compared to competitors’ L2/L3 frameworks like Arbitrum’s Orbit or zkSync’s ZK Stack, whether to use specialized RaaS providers to develop the ecosystem, is an interesting development.

Ethereum Rollup metrics continue to break records, and more and more dApps are choosing to deploy on L2 instead of L1, signaling the arrival of the L2 aggregation era. EIP-4844, known as Proto-Danksharding, is expected to significantly reduce L2 Rollup fees and improve its competitiveness. The high L2 usage, convenient deployment of infrastructure like OP Stack and Conduit, and the prospects of EIP-4844 will further drive the development of L2. We look forward to seeing how the future unfolds.

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