Original Title: "The OP Stack: What's New?"

Original Source: Binance Research

Translated by: 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 have surpassed Ethereum since the end of 2022.

The latest wave of L2 releases has seen many using OP Stack, an open-source software development OP Stack that supports Ethereum L2, OP mainnet, and new entrants such as Base and Zora Network. Optimism envisions combining these Rollups with many others to form a decentralized L2 chain network, or a superchain.

This article delves into the OP Stack and hyperchain theory, and then explores the constantly evolving OP Stack ecosystem, including Base, Zora Network, DeBank Chain, and more. In addition, infrastructure solutions are discussed to enable developers and builders from various backgrounds to access this series of OP Stack chains.

01、About Optimism

Optimism is the company behind the OP mainnet, which is a 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 writing of this report, the total locked value (TVL) of the OP mainnet exceeds $2.6 billion and it has the second largest market capitalization among all Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, with a market share of over 25%.

In October 2022, Optimism introduced the OP Stack, a highly scalable and interoperable modular open-source blueprint. It also introduced the concept of a "Superchain," which refers to a highly integrated and unified Layer 2 blockchain group built on the OP Stack. The next major development is to migrate their L2 Rollup to Bedrock.

Until now, a brief timeline of Optimism's development is as follows:

OP Stack is a standardized, shared, and open-source development for the OP mainnet, consisting of various software components that build Optimism's L2 Rollup for 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 modules to suit their needs. OP Stack deconstructs different building L2 components and packages them into independent modules. Ultimately, Optimism expects highly compatible L2s, known as OP chains, which will form part of a superchain.

The theory of Super Chain is the vision of Optimism, which upgrades its ecosystem to a Super Chain. The Super Chain is envisioned as a decentralized L2 chain (OP chain) network, where these chains share security, communication layer, and open-source technology Stack (OP Stack). These chains will be standardized and used as interchangeable resources to enhance the interoperability of the chain.

This standardization will enable builders to create applications that target the entire superchain, rather than just applications that run on the underlying chain. It should be noted that the superchain is still a concept and is constantly being improved.

Superconductor demonstration

Continuously Growing OP Stack Ecosystem

When Bedrock was released in June 2023, we saw many Rollup projects based on OP Stack. Next, we will take a closer look at some of the star projects and major infrastructure projects.

Quickly looking at the table below, we notice that Base's development is far ahead. In fact, the cumulative unique addresses of Base are even higher than those of the OP mainnet. Base's Onchain Summer activities and integration with Coinbase may be some key reasons that contribute to the relatively high numbers of its user base.

Please note that only 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) Projects worth paying attention to

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 L2 and is the most popular OP Stack chain after the OP mainnet.

Onchain Summer is a one-month release event that was launched simultaneously with Base, attracting multiple partners, including Coca-Cola, to jointly launch NFT Mint. The event attracted over 268,000 unique wallets from 75 unique series, generating over 700,000 Mints. Base's close association with Coinbase enables it to integrate multiple features, providing convenient access for Coinbase users. Base has also launched over 100 dApps, and its ecosystem is constantly growing.

Additionally, friend.tech is a highly anticipated SocialFi platform that allows users to trade tokenized "keys" and has attracted a large number of users 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, the daily transactions of friend.tech slowed down significantly until it heated up again in recent weeks.

The Base ecosystem fund is led by Coinbase Ventures and focuses on supporting early-stage projects, including DeFi, Fiat on/off-ramp, and creator platforms. In addition, the Base team has released Pessimism, an open-source monitoring system designed to enhance 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 cooperation between Optimism and Base, they have reached an economic agreement where Base will donate 2.5% of the sequencer's total revenue or 15% of net profit to Optimism, and 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 contribution to the infrastructure of the superchain.

Zora Network

Zora Network is a decentralized, 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.

Public Goods Network

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

PGN's operation mode. The PGN file indicates that the vast majority of net sorting fees will be used to support public product projects, so as activity on L2 increases, funds for public welfare projects will also increase. PGN aims to attract various types of dApps to deploy on its L2, not limited to projects related to public products. PGN plans to evaluate its fees within six months before January 2024 and allocate them to public product projects. More details will be announced in the coming weeks.

In addition, PGN also plans to use Contractual Revenue Sharing (CSR) after October 2023, which will allow developers to collect a certain percentage of fees generated from their contracts and support them in creating sustainable business models. CSR may become part of a wider L2 network and there is even an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) to introduce CSR on the EVM's L2.

PGN's user metrics steadily increased in August. Despite a slight slowdown in new account additions in September, trading continues to climb.

Mode

The positioning of Mode is to support high-speed growth of L2 networks, and empower users and developers to build world-class applications and expand ecosystems through direct rewards. In achieving this goal, revenue sharing incentives play a key role.

To run the L2 network, a sequencer needs to be maintained, which is responsible for sorting, processing, and passing L2 transactions to the L1 main chain. Typically, transaction fees paid by users belong to the DAO or the sequencing company. Mode aims to distribute these sorting fees to developers and users of the network, rather than the company.

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

Mode encourages users, developers, and protocols to recommend new members to share a portion of 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. Finally, Mode takes a minimal governance approach, only requiring DAO to vote on several key issues, including deciding how to allocate sorting fees.

Mode has nearly 4 million transactions and over 36,000 independent accounts.

Mode is currently in public testnet and is expected to last until the end of September. The mainnet is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023.

DeBank

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

DeBank Chain's core goal is to reduce the transaction costs of user interactions within the DeBank ecosystem. By modifying the consensus mechanism, the gas cost of personal transactions has been successfully reduced to better meet the high-frequency social interaction needs. In addition, DeBank Chain also has a directly built-in account abstraction function, while also generating protocol revenue. Since the launch of the testnet on August 11th, DeBank Chain has recorded over 2.1 million transactions, covering more than 50,000 unique wallet addresses. In addition, DeBank has attracted over 250,000 registered users.

Ancient8 和 Ancient8 Chain

Ancient8 has always operated as a gaming guild and, in collaboration with over 100 games, aims to help gamers enter the Web3 world. They have introduced the Ancient8 Chain, which is an Ethereum L2 series focused on gaming. The testnet for 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 established the 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 5000 independent accounts. These statistics demonstrate the popularity and growth momentum of Ancient8 Chain in the Web3 gaming field.

The testnet of Ancient 8 Chain is still in its early stages.

(2) Infrastructure

Conduit

Conduit is a Resource-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform that allows developers to easily launch their own OP Stack aggregation. The Conduit team operates and maintains the aggregation so that developers can focus on building products rather than managing infrastructure.

Since the launch of the mainnet in March 2023, many different OP Stack chains, including Zora Network, Public Product Network, Ancient8 Chain, and Mode, have chosen to work 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 automatically scalable RPC. In addition, Conduit automatically updates the L2 of each partner and integrates with the Optimism superchain, and also supports the Optimism charity fund with part of the fees.

Conduit's integration allows partners to connect to other infrastructure projects such as Zora Network, Axelar, etc., enhancing Conduit's integrated infrastructure and making it easier for rollups to expand their user base.

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

AltLayer

AltLayer is an RaaS protocol that allows developers to launch Optimism Rollup. It supports multi-chain and multi-VM worlds, including EVM, WASM, Solana VM, and Move VM. Unlike Conduit, AltLayer supports various software development platforms. AltLayer is currently in the testnet.

AltLayer's products include no-code dashboards, allowing users to create custom L2 Rollups in minutes, as well as the Rollup SDK, which is suitable for developers who want to integrate Rollup services directly into their own products. AltLayer also offers a shared sequencer set, enabling cross-chain atomic transactions and messaging with other L2s launched alongside AltLayer.

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, sequence sets, and interoperability platforms, increasing the flexibility and interoperability of Rollup.

Flash layer is a one-time application-specific Rollup, which is very useful for high-traffic activities such as NFT Mint, mini-games, etc. AltLayer also provides 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 universal Rollup OP Stack supports multiple protocols.

Summary

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

The new feature, such as Conduit integration, is simplifying the deployment and expansion of OP Stack Rollup, providing possibilities for more L2 Rollup based on the Stack. The uniqueness of Conduit combined with OP Stack, compared to competitors' L2/L3 frameworks such as Orbit of Arbitrum or ZK Stack of zkSync, makes it an interesting development whether to use a dedicated RaaS provider to develop the ecosystem.

Ethereum Rollup metrics continue to refresh historical records, and more and more dApps are deciding to deploy on L2 instead of L1, heralding the era of L2 aggregation. EIP-4844, also known as Proto-Danksharding, is expected to significantly reduce L2 Rollup costs and increase its competitiveness. The high usage of L2, the convenient deployment of infrastructure such as OP Stack and Conduit, and the prospects of EIP-4844 will further drive the development of L2. As for how the future will develop, we will wait and see.

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