Optimism upgrade “Bedrock
Ethereum (ETH)’s L2 network Optimism is steadily developing toward the large-scale upgrade “Bedrock” scheduled to be implemented in the first quarter of 2023. On the 13th, the testnet successfully migrated to Bedrock.
We’re almost ready to bring you the cheapest, fastest, most minimal EVM-equivalent rollup architecture, ever. Only 3 steps remain:
1. Jan. 12 Testnet migration
2. @OptimismGov vote on mainnet upgrade proposal
3. Q1 mainnet migration to Bedrock🤯— OP Labs (@OPLabsPBC) December 21, 2022
The next step in the process is to get a governance vote approved for an upgrade of the Optimism mainnet.
Optimism describes Bedrock as “the cheapest, fastest, most advanced Rollup architecture” and claims it will be a “game changer for the Rollup market.”
Rollup is a scaling solution that eliminates network congestion by processing some transactions off-chain (outside the blockchain). In the “Optimistic Rollup” adopted by Optimism, Arbitrum, etc., it usually takes up to 7 days to move assets between L1 ⇔ L2, but after Bedrock, this will be shortened by more than 4 times.
Key Bedrock advantages include 2-step withdrawal of bridged assets for added security, up to 50x faster sync speed between nodes, significantly lower L1 data transmission costs than other Rollups (contributes to lower gas costs), supports multiple execution clients for greater decentralization, and can support a variety of proof systems, including ZK-rollups.
Relation:Ethereum’s L2 technology “Optimistic Ethereum” can be operated with one click
Ethereum L2 Market Competition
Development of L2 providers such as Arbirtrum, which adopts the same Optimistic Rollup, and ZK (zero-knowledge proof)-based Polygon “zkEVM,” is becoming active. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said on January 1 that he expects many L2 scaling solutions “rollups” to emerge from their immature stage in 2023 and become more decentralized.
According to the data site L2Beat, in “Total Value Locked (TVL)”, which indicates the total amount deposited in the DeFi protocol, Arbuitrum ($2.6 billion) is the top, and Optimism is the second ($1.5 billion).
Optimism just completed their Bedrock test but upgrade as traction has started picking up over the last month, flipping Arbitrum… pic.twitter.com/aIfO23XT7q
—Avi (@AviFelman) January 13, 2023
However, Optimism’s user activity has been on the rise recently, and it was observed that it surpassed Arbitrum in December 2010. Optimism’s daily trading volume has increased by more than 100% since its launch in 2023, according to data analytics firm Nansen.
On December 21st, major crypto asset (virtual currency) wallet MetaMask started supporting Arbitrum and Optimism with its in-wallet swap function.
In mid-December, Optimism confirmed a sharp increase in the trading volume of the stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USDCoin (USDC), as well as an increase in active addresses around the same time.
🤞 #Optimism saw a massive spike in transaction volume of #stablecoins on its blockchain, just as $OP hit its local top last week. Our latest insight covers the increase in address activity, transaction volume coinciding with price reversals and more. 👀 https://t.co/ZJ4UHsK3PQ pic.twitter.com/TVoIXqFJPT
—Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 21, 2022
According to data analytics firm Santiment, the average trading volume of USDT and USDC on Optimism is just under $10 million, while it peaked at just under $1 billion. It’s unclear why, but “something may be on the horizon,” Santiment points out.
Source: Coingecko
The price of Optimism’s own token OP has roughly doubled from 118.51 yen ($0.92) at the beginning of 2023 to 231 yen ($1.81) at the time of writing. OP has a market capitalization of 50.1 billion yen and is ranked 98th in the market.
Relation:Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Bullish on Rollups in 2023
