Optimism

Optimism officially launched May 31 2022, developed by Optimism Foundation (previously known as Optimism PBC), co-founded by Jinglan Wang, Karl Floersch, and Kevin Ho. The development began around 2019.

Optimism uses Optimistic Rollup technology to scale Ethereum. Transactions are executed off-chain and submitted to Ethereum in batches. This model makes Optimism highly cost and speed efficient. Optimism supports EVM-compatible smart contracts. OP is used for governance, allocating funding, and voting on protocol upgrades and incentive programs.

Optimism offers several notable features:

• Scalability: Optimistic Rollups allow for reduced gas fees and higher throughput compared to Ethereum mainnet.
• Compatibility: Developers can easily migrate or deploy Ethereum dApps without modifying core logic.
• Security: Inherits Ethereum’s security model and uses fraud proofs to ensure transaction validity.
• Governance: OP hodlers participate in voting on protocol upgrades, treasury allocation, and ecosystem decisions via the Optimism Collective.
• Funding: A portion of network revenue and token distribution supports the development of open-source tools and infrastructure.
• Interoperability: Bridges allow movement of assets between Ethereum and Optimism, improving useability for users and developers.