The Superchain’s Optimism-affiliated networks, like Coinbase’s Base, rely on Ethereum for communication with one another, which makes asset transfers often costly and time-consuming. Optimism is creating its own interoperability strategy in order to solve that.

Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain ecosystem that has been successful in drawing new projects to utilize its technology—most notably, Coinbase’s Base—is currently attempting to strengthen the connections across the related networks.

The ecosystem, which was developed to let users transact on Ethereum for less money, unveiled its plan on Monday, 12 August 2024, for a native interoperability solution that would solve fragmentation across the several Optimism chains.

The news coincides with the launching of several layer-2 ecosystems’ own interoperability solutions, such as the ZKsync blockchain’s development company Matter Labs’ Elastic Chain and competitor Polygon’s AggLayer.

Since its founding, Optimism’s ecosystem has expanded significantly, in part because of its OP Stack, an adaptable toolset that enables developers to create their own layer-2 networks based on Optimism’s technology, such as Worldcoin’s Worldchain or Coinbase’s Base chain.

Nine of the top 20 layer-2 blockchains that are monitored by the website L2Beat are associated with the Optimism network. All in all, they have locked in a total value of almost $16 billion, more than the $15.1 billion claimed by Arbitrum One, the largest single layer-2 network.

Teams that use OP Stack to establish their own networks also commit to Optimism’s Superchain ethos, which consists of a set of cultural and commercial norms that support the ecology of Optimism.

According to Mark Tyneway, Co-founder of OP Labs, the primary development company behind Optimism, “I think, like, the best way to think about the Superchain is that it’s a set of people and organizations that are aligned towards the common goal of elevating humanity and upgrading capitalism,” in an interview.

“Every chain in the Superchain pays a portion of the money they make from operating their sequencer to the Optimism governance, and Optimism governance does retroactive public goods funding,” according to Tyneway. This means that tokens and grants are given to people who support the Optimism ecosystem.

Depending on Ethereum

One issue impeding development has been the Superchain’s network’s reliance on Ethereum for communication, which makes asset transfers generally costly and time-consuming.

In order to solve that, Optimism plans to provide its own native interoperability layer, which will facilitate communication across networks inside the Superchain.

In a blog post with CoinDesk, the Optimism team stated, “The Superchain needs to feel like one chain.” “We’re aiming to create a unified Superchain where users, assets, and developers can travel freely throughout the network and beyond in order to accomplish this.”

By early 2025, the Optimism team hopes to have the native interoperability solution operational on the mainnet. The Optimism team will shortly deploy the interoperability layer on a developer network, and then a test network will launch.

According to Tyneway, interoperability allows you to read data from one chain and process it on another, explaining how technology works.