Key Takeaways
- The Ethereum Layer 2 community Optimism is launching a token and new governance mannequin.
- The Optimism group has introduced that the token shall be distributed by way of a collection of airdrops, and that new customers can nonetheless become involved.
- Optimism is one among a number of Layer 2 options hoping to assist Ethereum obtain scalability.
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Optimism’s new OP token shall be distributed to Optimism customers throughout “a complete season of airdrops.” The group revealed its token as half of a bigger transfer towards a decentralized governance construction often called the Optimism Collective.
Optimism Launches Token
Ethereum energy customers are getting one other airdrop—a collection of them, in reality.
Optimism, one among Ethereum’s prime Layer 2 scaling initiatives, has introduced that it will likely be issuing a governance token beneath the ticker OP. The Optimism group revealed the information in a blog post Tuesday. The group additionally shared a list of criteria for airdrop eligibility, which incorporates objects so simple as being an Optimism person to extra superior standards akin to being a DAO voter or multisig signer.
The token airdrop would be the first in a collection of airdrops to be launched within the coming months. Whereas the group didn’t present a precise date for the primary airdrop, it took care to warn customers that it isn’t stay but, and any try and persuade customers in any other case is a rip-off.
The token drop is an element of a bigger transfer to a extra decentralized governance construction. The Optimism Collective, as it will likely be often called of right now’s announcement, will function a bicameral “home” system that divides governance roles amongst a Token Home and a Residents’ Home. The Token Home shall be comprised of recipients of OP in the course of the first airdrop; Optimism will add customers to the Residents’ Home later by means of issuing “soulbound” NFTs that can not be purchased or bought. Collectively, the bicameral system in supposed to mitigate the potential plutocratic tendencies of purely token-based governance.
Optimism leverages a type of cryptographic expertise referred to as Optimistic Rollups to assist Ethereum scale. By working its personal community on prime of the bottom chain, it may possibly course of transactions at a better velocity and decrease value than Ethereum mainnet whereas leveraging the safety of the community. Optimism has a bridge that connects Ethereum mainnet to its Layer 2 community. Since launching in 2021, the community has welcomed key DeFi initiatives like Synthetix and Uniswap. In launching a token, Optimism shall be adopting a decentralized governance mannequin akin to many different related DeFi initiatives on Ethereum.
The token announcement had been anticipated for a number of days, thanks primarily to an Apr. 19 Mirror post wherein Optimism detailed a plan to start out a brand new chapter “pushed by group possession and governance.” A leaked Coinbase web page additionally appeared to checklist an Optimism token final week.
Layer 2 Race Intensifies
The challenge has seen important progress over the previous few months amid elevated deal with Ethereum’s Layer 2 scaling options. In response to L2Beat data, the community holds about $662 million in complete worth locked, a sum that’s jumped 15% over the past week for the reason that token rumors began to floor. Notably, though Optimism is at present benefiting from a wave of hype, it’s nonetheless lagging behind its greatest competitor, Arbitrum, one other Layer 2 answer of the Optimistic Rollup selection holding $3.57 billion in complete worth locked—greater than half the Ethereum Layer 2 market.
Whereas Optimism and Arbitrum are at present two of Ethereum’s greatest scaling weapons, that’s anticipated to vary as soon as ZK-Rollups like StarkWare’s StarkNet acquire important traction. Final week, the early Ethereum DeFi challenge MakerDAO outlined plans to launch on StarkNet commencing with a bridge launch this Thursday as a part of its dedication to serving to the Ethereum ecosystem scale (2022 can also be an enormous 12 months for the Ethereum protocol and its scaling roadmap, because it’s attributable to launch its extremely anticipated “Merge” to Proof-of-Stake).
With Optimism now dropping a token, different related Layer 2 protocols face a choice of whether or not to observe swimsuit. On this planet of DeFi, it’s not unusual for initiatives to launch a token as soon as a competitor does to incentivize utilization and assist bootstrap progress. Both approach, alongside the Merge, the race to construct out Layer 2 is prone to change into a key narrative in Ethereumland over the following few months.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the writer of this piece was eligible for Optimism’s token airdrop. Additionally they owned ETH, SNX, and had publicity to MKR and UNI in a cryptocurrency index.
