Coinworld Report:
Author: Jonah Roberts, Bankless author/researcher; Translation: xiaozou
Ethereum L2 has always been a chaotic battlefield. Top L2s have been fiercely competing for years to attract developers to build their applications within their respective ecosystems.
With the dust settling, top development teams continue to choose Optimism Superchain.
This article will analyze the major projects being developed on the OP Stack and why Superchain has been able to win the favor of developers.
1. Market positioning of Optimism Superchain
In the competitive blockchain space market, many blockchains offer similar services. To secure market share, it requires not only good technology but also innovative use cases and strategic growth. Optimism has done well in this regard, adopting top-notch business development models to turn Superchain from a bold name into a dominant reality.
Although the total value locked (TVL) on the OP mainnet still lags behind competitors such as Arbitrum and Polygon, this Superchain has performed exceptionally well. According to data from Base and DeFiLlama, its TVL has recently surpassed Arbitrum.
While Arbitrum and other L2s attempt to scale the interconnected blockchain ecosystem, their success has been relatively limited compared to Optimism.
This is because Superchain has incredible network effects and seems to have truly won the meme war, becoming the golden land of on-chain development.
However, this does not completely diminish the importance of other L2s, as they will continue to play a crucial role in Ethereum’s scalability. But it is worth noting that the OP Stack has clearly become the actual development place for the industry’s largest players.
2. Superchain projects to watch
Optimism’s modular design allows some of the biggest players in the industry to create influential products under the umbrella of Superchain. A recent example is World Chain, the Superchain launched by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Web3 concept World (formerly known as WorldCoin).
World Chain is designed to be a verifiable human network. It may be the most advanced identity verification system in Web3 to date. World Chain already has 7 million unique address users, which is enough to verify this. As of August, the number of unique address wallets holding 20 WLD tokens on all Ethereum networks is greater than the number of wallets holding 20 USDC tokens.
Another heavyweight company that recently joined this Superchain is Uniswap, which launched Unichain, a dedicated rollup aiming to become the liquidity hub of this Superchain. As the largest DEX in the cryptocurrency field, Uniswap has processed trillions of dollars in trading volume for millions of users. By integrating liquidity within this Superchain, Unichain aims to eliminate the inefficiencies caused by decentralized liquidity across different chains, indicating that the Uniswap Foundation believes this Superchain will be the gathering place for the majority of user activities.
Another notable project is Coinbase’s ambitious on-chain project, Base. Known for lightning-fast transactions and fees of less than 1 cent, Base has quickly become the preferred choice for dApps and developers. The exponential growth of Base has greatly contributed to the adoption of this Superchain, demonstrating the power of network effects. The exponential growth of this network is one of the most important crypto narratives this year and is expected to continue to play a core role in the future.
Lastly, let’s look at Kraken. Just this week, Kraken announced the launch of their own new L2 called Ink. Ink appears to be a direct competitor to Base, but in the long run, both contribute to the development of the entire Superchain ecosystem.
3. Vision and philosophy of Optimism
Optimism’s mission is described as “forking capitalism,” aiming to achieve a financial vision that emphasizes better value alignment and accounting responsibility. This philosophy is reflected in the design and governance of the network, led by the Optimism community. The inclusive architecture and open-source principles of the network support a decentralized economy with rules collectively formulated by participants. This vision challenges the traditional profit-driven model of centralization by providing a model that prioritizes community ownership and inclusivity.
Furthermore, the design goal of the economic model of this Superchain is to create shared incentives among all chains on the OP Stack. Optimism and its OP token directly benefit from a revenue-sharing model, where a portion of fees generated from activities on individual chains like Base or Ink flows back to the main network. This optional framework ensures that the growth of some Superchain rollups contributes to the entire ecosystem, transforming potential competition into cooperation.
This revenue-sharing model not only expands the technology of Ethereum but also aligns with the principles of decentralization and sustainable growth of the network. By enabling each chain to contribute to the economic vitality of the ecosystem, Optimism positions itself to grow together with the evolving network.
4. Future prospects
Undeniably, Optimism Superchain is currently the leader in the L2 scaling army, but we are still in the early stages of rollups. Major non-Web3 players are still exploring the possibilities of on-chain, leaving room for other players to seize market share and challenge this 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 experiences a unified Superchain user experience. The current growth of Optimism lays the foundation for Ethereum’s long-term dominance in the ecosystem.
