Lasted Updated October 8, 2024 This is a living document.
Optimism is here to scale Ethereum technology and values & build an internet that benefits all, and is owned by all. No matter what happens to the market, it’s core to Optimism’s identity and strategy that we remain decentralized, open source, and focused on scaling.
The Superchain is a network of chains/platforms, each with its own sovereignty, yet all united by Optimism Governance. That means Optimism’s core customer is the platform developer – businesses or projects deploying OP Chains to build their own ecosystems, and by extension their customers - application developers and end users. A scaled Ethereum - trillions in GDP, billions of users, and millions of developers - requires some core principles to outline the product the Optimism Collective is building together.
This is the Foundation’s vision for the Superchain over the next two years. Executing on this vision will require collaboration among all of the Collective’s contributors.
Standardization of chains enables decentralization and composability at scale
Chains benefit from shared governance of upgrades and security
All chains are Stage 2, free from control by any one actor, and all upgrade keys are managed by governance
The Superchain starts as 15-50 chains that feel like one, and scales to 1000+
Every transaction is sub-second and sub-cent
Platform ecosystems can scale by launching multiple chains
Individual chains are abstracted away to enable seamless UX
Governance protects the security of the Superchain
Governance ensures the safety of user funds and liveness of each OP Chain in the Superchain
Voting is legitimate, capture resistant, and representative of the Collective’s primary stakeholders – decisions are made with input by those who are impacted by them
Stage 2 ensures every individual user’s right to exit Optimism-governed blockspace
Governance creates a flywheel of sustainable growth and development
Governance incentivizes the development and maintenance of public goods that benefit all OP Chains, application developers, or users
Governance supports the growth of the Superchain economy, and makes sustainable economy policy decisions such as inflation and resource allocation
Governance protects the Collective against rent-seeking and other extractive business models
Special thanks to members of the Collective Feedback Commission for review and valuable feedback on early drafts of this document.
my opinion ,In the Superchain vision, OP token holders and Optimism’s governance mechanisms play a key role. However, since the Superchain includes several other L2 chains, governance from those chains may also have some influence in certain areas, though the overall direction will still be driven by the Optimism Collective.
The big outstanding question is around business model. Superchain – once increasing levels of interoperability are implemented – is a good product design. But we would like to see more thought into the business design since this has to be financially sustainable.
Assuming technical interoperability comes sooner rather than later, the big longterm question is what benefit do OP tokenholders see from dilution-financing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and investments on chains outside of Optimism mainnet?
In our opinion, sequencer revenue sharing is a melting ice cube – it will trend towards zero over time. We do believe Optimism needs to avoid being locked into a strategy where this is the only way to monetize a relationship with Superchain members. It would shock us if Superchain members themselves are not already debating how to ultimately monetize their chains in ways that are unrelated to the sequencer fees.
Unfortunately, this is a topic that needs to be settled now – so that Superchain members are understanding of what the longterm relationship with Optimism will be, and so that OP tokenholders are still entitled to a share of the financial success of other chains even if sequencer fees become inconsequential. If we were to launch an L2, we would certainly sign up for Superchain membership for access to grants, future interoperability, etc, and would absolutely have a plan other than sequencer fees to realize a return.
As very large blocks of grants flow out to Superchain members from both the Foundation and the Grants Council, this needs to be a settled question: What is in this for OP holders if the member chains have – by design or necessity – close to no sequencer fees?
We understand this post was a product vision rather than a business strategy, but it needs to be set in the context of financial reality. Tokenholders need to see a plan to navigate through that reality without endless dilution of the OP token to finance what could be competitor chains if either the technical (via interop) and economic (via revenue sharing agreements) are not executed upon perfectly.
From a token holder’s perspective, we are seeing large grants being given away with no clear explanation on how it benefits us in the long run. More explanation on this would clear the air and help the community make up its mind one way or another.
Excited to see this kind of vision-centered communication, something so important for creating alignment and often overlooked.
As a product vision, I find the perspective presented super interesting and appealing. Although I confess that at times I don’t fully grasp the specifics of what is being described. Am I alone on that?
And BTW, to address this comment…
I want to thank @GFXlabs for not letting go of the thread and for asking the necessary questions. But I agree that this post was a product vision rather than a business strategy… so I’d like to point out that I’ve started a new thread to collectively address the big outstanding question around the business model.
I also want to acknowledge the OP foundation @system for keeping communication open and clarifying the source vision.
I celebrate that governance is being highlighted.
As a wannabe-govNERD, it seems to me () that ‘governance’ is becoming our biggest value proposition to such an extent that the ‘business model’ thing could precisely be solved by offering our built capacities to other organizations as a form of consultancy, providing ‘governance-as-a-service’.
It could range from ensuring the safety of user funds (and all the technical implications in protocol updates) to facilitating feedback sessions and agreement building (understanding that governance is also present throughout that entire process).
While it may not be the solution we dream of, since it isn’t automatable or a ‘passive income’, It’s a model with potential, especially if we think about the DAO-ification that organizations of the future will undergo. Moreover, it is based on person-to-person work (which can be a positive in a world full of AIs).
As the pillar of pragmatism says, “sometimes, the best solution isn’t the prettiest one.”
It’s an idealistic view that reminds me of web3 in its early days, but I think a lot has changed in the industry in the past few years. Now, projects only care about their own token and its well-being. Instead of value creation, it’s largely about value extraction.
So what’s to stop a project from getting OP grants in its early days, use it to grow, and once they reach a certain threshold, move away and form their own chain using (say) SVM.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting the foundation should become completely cynical. I just believe it’s better to think about how to get long-term value from the Superchain that benefits OP holders.
I am also curious what is the cost of starting a new chain and whether the economics even with a grant make sense.
I am not sure that the new chain contributes to the governance as a model part. In particular, Base chain is highly centralised but as of moment brings the most trading volume.
We would like to better understand what sovereignty means in practice here. It seems like there isn’t much room for chain operators/communities to apply specification changes outside of those specified in non-protocol features and parts related to managing revenue. It’s worth asking if this is something that will become more flexible in the future and how this contrasts with OP Governance’s ownership and security of the infrastructure.
) that ‘governance’ is becoming our biggest value proposition to such an extent that the ‘business model’ thing could precisely be solved by offering our built capacities to other organizations as a form of consultancy, providing ‘governance-as-a-service’.