Optimism Feast is Coming? A Comprehensive Overview of OP Stack Ecological Projects

Optimism Feast Overview of OP Stack Ecological Projects

Author: Frank, Foresight News

Since June, the expansion of the OP Stack ecosystem has clearly accelerated. Within the past two and a half months, 11 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 (not a complete count).

As an open-source modular toolkit launched by Optimism, OP Stack allows developers to assemble a customized Layer 2 network based on their own needs and scenarios, thereby accessing the Ethereum network and sharing resources. It has also become the biggest dark horse in the “one-click chain launch + modular” field this year.

Among them, the circle of friends of OP Stack is quite large. In addition to well-known projects such as Base, opBNB, and Worldcoin, there are also some old Layer 1 public chains that hope to turn to the Ethereum Layer 2 track through OP Stack.

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OP Stack’s “Crazy Growth”

In this article, the projects that have already joined or plan to join the OP Stack superchain ecosystem are sorted according to the time of their release. Overall, OP Stack’s expansion can be described as flourishing, with a total of 19 projects covering various fields such as exchanges, public chains, clients, NFT, games, derivatives, etc.

OPCraft

On October 18, 2022, Lattice, an on-chain game developer, launched the on-chain virtual world game dedicated chain OPCraft based on OP Stack. Developers can achieve higher throughput and shorter block times with simple debugging.

Base

On February 23 this year, Coinbase launched the Layer 2 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 has deep integration with the Coinbase product ecosystem. As of the time of writing, the total locked value on the Base network has just reached $200 million, with a 68.89% surge in the past 7 days, and its share in the Layer 2 network is 1.9%.

This is second only to Arbitrum (55.98%), Optimism (26.81%), zkSync (4.14%), dYdX (3.15%), and ranks ahead of other well-known Layer 2 projects such as Starknet and Immutable X.

Currently, Base is also the undisputed leader in Optimism’s OP Stack superchain ecosystem, estimated to bring an additional $4.5 million in revenue 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 running.

UniDex

On April 2, the multi-chain aggregator Unidex launched the Magma testnet built on OP Stack, aiming to provide secure and fast transactions with low gas costs. At the same time, it plans to gradually migrate the UniDex product ecosystem to the Magma network.

Magi

On April 19th, a16z Crypto launched the Rollup client “Magi” based on OP Stack. This client is written in Rust language and replaces the consensus client (Rollup client) in OP Stack. It works together with the execution client (such as op-geth) for synchronization, aiming to improve the client diversity and flexibility of the entire OP Stack ecosystem.

Currently, Magi is still in a very early stage and there is no further information on project progress. It may take several months of development time before it becomes a viable alternative to op-node.

op-erigon

On April 20th, Test in Prod developed an alternative execution client called op-erigon based on OP Stack. It is currently being tested on OP Goerli, allowing users to test on GitHub repositories or on the OP Goerli public RPC in production. It will eventually be released on the OP mainnet.

Worldcoin

On May 11th, Worldcoin, a crypto project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, announced that its ecological wallet World App will migrate from Polygon to the Optimism mainnet. The World ID protocol will also be available on the OP mainnet.

Subsequently, Worldcoin Foundation and Tools for Humanity, the main software contributors of Worldcoin, announced a partnership with Optimism Collective to jointly build a scalable blockchain ecosystem based on OP Stack. In addition, Worldcoin ID announced that it will build an application chain based on OP Stack to build an ecosystem related to on-chain identity systems.

Therefore, after the distribution of WLD tokens on July 24th, it directly boosted the on-chain daily transaction volume of Optimism, which once exceeded 800,000 transactions, surpassing Arbitrum and setting a new historical high.

Keystone

On May 31st, Curio officially open-sourced Keystone, a full-chain game engine L2 chain based on OP Stack. It uses custom precompilation to integrate game tick 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 19th, BNB Chain announced the launch of opBNB, a Layer 2 network based on OP Stack, on the testnet. By adopting OP Stack Rollup, opBNB can move computation and state storage off-chain to alleviate congestion and reduce transaction costs.

Zora Network

On June 22nd, NFT trading market Zora launched the Layer 2 network Zora Network based on OP Stack, and seamlessly integrated with the existing infrastructure of the Zora marketplace.

Artists, brands, and collectors can seamlessly join the new Layer 2 network, including 35 Web3 project entities such as music NFT platform Sound.XYZ, wallet application Rainbow Wallet, Web 3.0 innovation incubator Seed Club, and PleasrDAO, as well as hundreds of thousands of users.

Loot Chain

On June 28th, the Loot ecosystem project Adventure Gold DAO adopted OP Stack to build the Layer 2 network Loot Chain, in order to reduce gas fees and use its native token AGLD as a gas token.

In addition, the chain also uses Polygon as the data availability layer, reducing the construction, deployment, and operation costs of the Loot Chain.

Manta LianGuaicific

On July 12th, Manta Network, a Layer 1 public chain based on ZK, launched Manta LianGuaicific, a Layer 2 network designed for zero-knowledge proof (ZK) applications based on OP Stack, and renamed its Layer 1 network Manta to Manta Atlantic.

Manta LianGuaicific uses Celestia as the data availability layer to provide security and reduce gas fees, and achieves scalability through the improved OP Stack by Caldera.

Mantle Network

On July 17th, Mantle Network, a modular Ethereum Layer 2 network built on OP Stack and supported by BitDAO and Bybit, launched the Alpha version of its mainnet. Mantle Network stated that it has undergone six months of development and testing, during which it processed over 14 million on-chain transactions.

Celo

On July 17th, cLabs, the development organization of Celo, proposed to transform Celo from an independent EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer 2 based on OP Stack. This includes an off-chain data availability layer supported by EigenLayer and EigenDA, operated by Ethereum node operators, and protected by re-collateralizing ETH, allowing Celo to maintain low fees.

Subsequently, on July 31st, the governance proposal for migrating Celo to the Ethereum L2 architecture was voted through.

Aevo

Aevo, a decentralized options exchange developed by Ribbon, is built on Aevo Chain, which runs on OP Stack.

On July 25th, the proposal for Ribbon Finance to merge into Aevo was approved, with plans to merge Ribbon Finance into Aevo and designate Aevo as the sole brand name. Additionally, the original token RBN will be abolished and a new token AEVO will be introduced.

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 ratio of 1:1.

Public Goods Network

On July 25th, Public Goods Network (PGN), a Layer 2 network based on OP Stack supported by Gitcoin and others, went live. According to the plan, after six months of network launch, PGN will evaluate and allocate fees based on accumulated data.

In addition, Gitcoin Grants Round 18 will run on PGN, and the donation round will take place from August 15th to 29th, 2023, with applications opening on August 1st.

Lyra Finance

On July 28th, options protocol Lyra Finance announced the launch of version 2, which includes the introduction of a customized Ethereum Rollup called “Lyra Chain” built on OP Stack. It aims to support high throughput, low latency, and low-cost transaction execution.

Mode Network

On August 7th, Mode Network, built on OP Stack, launched its public testnet. It incorporates contract revenue-sharing incentives at the protocol layer, where applications and users of the Mode blockchain will directly receive a portion of the network sequencer’s profits. The goal is to develop the Mode and Superchain ecosystem by incentivizing and directly rewarding developers, users, and the protocol.

Debank

On August 11th, DeBank launched the DeBank Chain testnet built on the OP Stack and plans to launch the mainnet in 2024. The DeBank Chain testnet has modified the consensus mechanism, which can reduce the gas fees for single transactions by 100 to 400 times.

In addition, Metis and Boba are also built on the underlying code of Optimism, to some extent, they are also members of the Optimism ecosystem.

The “ultimate” growth point of Optimism?

The narrative of the Optimism superchain is not something new. Projects like Cosmos have long been working on the direction of “one-click chain deployment + modularity”. However, compared to the OP Stack, which has attracted many big names, the Cosmos application chain has performed mediocrely this year.

Both from the perspective of the development of ecosystem partners and the actual performance of various on-chain data, OP Stack seems to have become the new growth point of Optimism.

It is worth noting that in the early stages of Optimism’s network development, it was mainly dominated by the Synthetix ecosystem, which resulted in a lack of strong leverage in its competition with Arbitrum, and it has been significantly lagging behind.

For example, in addition to Synthetix, there are applications such as Kwenta, a derivative trading platform based on Synthetix (launched on July 30, 2021), and Lyra, an options protocol on the Synthetix ecosystem (launched on August 25, 2021). The only native leading application is Velodrome, which ranks at the forefront of the ecosystem.

However, after Arbitrum went live on September 2, 2021, the TVL (Total Value Locked) increased to $1 billion to $3.5 billion within a month, surpassing Optimism, which has been hovering around hundreds of millions of dollars with a significant difference.

But Optimism quickly caught up with two opportunities:

First, in May of last year, with the OP airdrop and incentive plan, Optimism made significant progress in cross-chain bridge TVL, ecosystem TVL, leading protocols, and community attention, narrowing the gap with Arbitrum, but it did not completely reverse the situation. The issuance of Arbitrum’s tokens also offset the “token dividend” to some extent.

Second, this new narrative of the OP Stack superchain seems to have finally found an effective differentiated competitive path for Optimism, allowing it to firmly stand its ground and not fall behind in competition with Arbitrum.

Especially with the support of partners like Base, opBNB, and Worldcoin, Optimism not only gives the Optimism superchain ecosystem strong brand endorsement but also provides a source of continuous growth for future users, transaction volume, and more.

With more and more developers, projects, and communities being attracted to the OP Stack, Optimism is poised to create a thriving ecosystem with various use cases in DeFi applications, NFTs, GameFi, and more.

In terms of the most direct data dimension, the TVL of the Optimism network has grown from $1.9 billion to $3 billion since mid-June, an increase of over 50%, which is in the same range as Arbitrum’s $5 billion, and their distance is no longer measured in “multiple times”.

“Relying on the Synthetix ecosystem in the early stages and leveraging the OP Stack universe in the later stages,” OP Stack is building its own “superchain ecosystem narrative.”

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