Details

Giving the users an in-depth look and explanation of what exactly Optimism is and it's purpose to it's users. Looking at it's conception and how it has evolved and also a quick guide on how it works.

Using Optimism

For users that are familiar with the Ethereum mainnet then if you will find the transition to Optimism should be quite smooth, as Optimism has pretty much the same feel. Your Optimism address will be the same as your Ethereum mainnet address, which begins with an 0x. In addition Optimism's blockchain explorer is exactly the same as Etherscan, which is Ethereum mainnet's blockchain explorer.

Optimism supports a number of different decentralized finance (DeFi) wallets, for example Metamask which is the most used in the world. Though you could manually configure your wallet Optimism, there is an easier way to get it done. All you will need to do is go to any DeFi app, preferably use one that you use frequently and are comfortable with. To minimize any complications. Once you are at the app you must then change the network to Optimism, which will usually be in the top of the page. Then your website selection will force your Metamask to add the network and then switch to it automatically.

But remember just like Ethereum mainnet, you will need to have ETH to cover gas fees. So in order to begin using Optimism you must first send ETH to your Metamask d\from another chain, like the Ethereum mainnet or another layer 2 network. In order to send funds from another chain you can use any of the bridges that support Optimism.

Another way to do it is to use a centralized cryptocurrency exchange to fund your Optimism address with the sufficient ETH. But before you can attempt to send your funds to a layer 2 from your centralized exchange always make sure that it can support withdrawal from that specific chain, or your funds could be irreversibly lost.

What is the OP token

Optimism is governed by it's eponymous token, or OP for short. Is is the second largest Ethereum layer 2 with a total of $313 million locked into it's smart contracts as of 2022, Arbitrum comes in first with $1.32 billion.

The OP token gives the holders participation rights in The Optimism Collective, which is a two tier governance system that is composed of Token House and Citizens House. With Citizens House releasing later in 2022. Token House which is already active, governs technical decisions that are related to Optimism like software updates and so on. The Citizens House will be meant to govern public goods funding decisions.

The Future of Optimism

The future for Optimism and it's users looks very promising with Optimism gaining plenty of funding in order to follow the roadmap and keeping users satisfied. The Optimism roadmap which you can find on the site consists of updates to the Optimism protocol, next-generation fault proof, shared rollups and a decentralized sequencer. Keep in mind that the project is still in the beta stage but the team continues to have some degree of control over the sequencer. Which is the technology that is responsible for creating blocks on Optimism. So far Optimism has been more centralized than Ethereum, whose developers do not posses the capacity to. However Optimism in the recent months has taken a big step towards decentralization. In April 2022, they launched a Dao called the Optimism collective, in order to fund public goods and govern the protocol as well.

Optimism is one of the Layer 2 scaling solutions, and is powered by a technology called Optimistic rollups, which takes large amounts of transaction data and turns them into more manageable batches. Being on Layer 2 that means that it functions on top of the Ethereum mainnet (layer 1). Transactions take place on Optimism, but that data about the transactions get posted to the mainnet where they become validated. Optimism is becoming one of the most popular later 2's just like Arbitrum, a big reason for that is because Optimism is much cheaper than Ethereum. The transactions take place on optimism