A pioneer in the Ethereum ecosystem, Optimism has established itself as one of the driving forces behind the development of "Layer 2" solutions with its OP Stack framework. Today, the initiative is going one step further with its ambitious vision of the "Superchain": an interconnected ecosystem of blockchains sharing a single infrastructure and unified liquidity.
This freemium model, with a "premium" offering akin to a franchise, is attracting many projects looking for technological and financial support. In just a few months, the Superchain has captured more than half the revenues of the L2 ecosystem, laying the foundations for exponential growth. But what does this innovative business model really entail, and what promise does it hold for the future of Optimism and its OP token?
The history of the Superchain Optimism has always been a pioneer in technological advances to 'scale' Ethereum. Even before rollups existed, the foundation was called the Plasma Group and was working on Plasma technology, which has since been abandoned in favour of rollups.
They were among the first to launch their rollup, followed by OP Stack, an open-source framework facilitating the construction of a highly scalable L2 that is interoperable with other L2s.
Optimism quickly adopted a vision of a future full of L2s, positioning itself as the central hub of this vision by offering a set of powerful open-source tools, enabling anyone to join the OP family and benefit from this network effect.
Beyond this level, Optimism has added a privileged layer for its L2s, enabling unified working towards a common goal: the Superchain.
The idea, launched in February 2023, describes an ecosystem of interconnected and unified Layer 2s, sharing the same liquidity in the future, as a single gigantic L2.
Imagine borrowing WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin) on Worldchain through ETH on Base that you exchange on Unichain, all in a single transaction, without switching networks on your wallet or bridging funds for fees. This is the vision of the Superchain.
A L2 wishing to use the OP Stack has two options:
Fork the OP Stack to benefit from its tools and facilitated interoperability with other L2s, and develop its ecosystem independently. Apply to join the Superchain and benefit from future tools such as standards or unified scheduling between all Superchain L2s. By choosing this option, it is possible to receive real support for its ecosystem with subsidies and retroactive funding. In return, the L2 must contribute 2.5% of its revenues or 15% of its profits (revenues minus publication costs on the L1) to the Optimism Collective's treasury. These fees are included in the Standard Rollup Charter, which all rollups must respect. This describes precisely the standards to be followed regarding revenues, profits, transaction aggregation and decentralisation, to ensure that each L2 in the Superchain respects its users.
To summarise, there are four different players:
Optimism Foundation: the foundation behind Optimism, the L2 that donates 100% of its revenue to the Optimism Collective. The Optimism Collective: a decentralised governance bringing together all the projects participating in the Superchain, whose treasury receives a percentage of the revenue generated by its participants. The Superchain: A set of L2 projects called "OP Chains" using the best tools made available by the Optimism Collective in exchange for a share of their revenues. OP Stacks: L2 projects that simply fork the OP Stack without participating in the Optimism Collective or the Superchain. With these two packages, Optimism offers a classic freemium model. It attracts all types of players with a free, permission-free offer, while offering evolution in return for revenue sharing to benefit from the best tools and a full network effect.
The Superchain "premium" model is similar to a classic franchise strategy. It involves selling its brand (Optimism Superchain) and resources (standards and inter-chain messaging) in exchange for a percentage of the fees collected.
This powerful model enables rapid growth when the brand is recognised and the infrastructure facilitates the creation of franchises. What's more, it creates a virtuous circle: the more franchises the original brand attracts, the more notoriety it gains, thus attracting more franchises, and so on.
This approach is similar to Ethereum's strategy, which, instead of charging a percentage on fees, directly sells the resource needed (blobs) to run layers 2.
This strategy has the advantage of encouraging the emergence of talent from outside the original team, as we saw with Base, the L2 developed by Coinbase that is part of the Superchain, by providing them with the best tools to get started.
Superchain: Functioning and vision In reality, the Superchain does not yet exist. For now, it is a vision that will become a reality when:
All transactions from all L2s will be aggregated. A single bridge will be shared by all L2s thanks to unique standards. Deployment and use of L2s will be extremely inexpensive. L2s will be able to freely configure their data availability or sequencing provider. Users will be able to migrate their holdings and history in complete security. At present, a devnet of the Superchain is operational with the appearance of nodes. It will cease operations on 16 December 2024 to make way for a testnet in the first quarter of 2025, followed by a mainnet in the second quarter of 2025.
The Superchain should possess all the properties mentioned above, thanks in particular to Across Protocol (read our analysis of the project) which will serve as the intent layer for the entire Superchain, facilitating interoperability. Numerous standards accepted by all OP Chains will also contribute to this.
Although no staking is mentioned for Optimism nodes, it is conceivable that OP Chains could use their own token staking for their nodes within the Superchain.
Shared Sequencing is also mentioned for its ability to create atomic and synchronised transactions. It could be integrated permissionless later.
Where does the Superchain stand? The Optimism Foundation has registered a total of 54 Layer 2s (probably many more in reality). Of these, 42 are part of the Superchain, including 14 that are not yet in mainnet.
Here's a look at the Superchain at the time of writing (mid-November 2024):
In comparison with all L2s, 21% are part of the Superchain and 44% use the OP Stack.
It appears that the benefits of joining the Superchain were far more attractive than the modest cash contribution required by the Optimism Collective, prompting many L2s to opt for the "premium" offering.
In just a few months, Superchain has achieved impressive figures:
52% of all L2 transactions 8% of transactions, L1 included 40% of total TVL on L2s 4% of TVL, L1 included 57% of all L2 revenue These market shares have been steadily increasing for several months, despite the fact that many promising Superchain L2s, such as Uniswap Labs' Unichain or Kraken's Ink, have yet to launch.
It can be concluded that the Superchain not only attracts a large proportion of L2s, but also manages to bring together the most relevant ones. Indeed, with just 21% of all L2s, the Superchain generates 57% of the sector's revenue.
Where's the OP token in all this? Despite a quiet summer, the Optimism Collective's treasury income is back on the rise with 435 ETH in October 2024, or around $1 million. The accumulated total reaches almost 16,000 ETH, the equivalent of $40 million.
These earnings are meticulously documented, and the addresses linked to these earnings are public:
0xa3d596EAfaB6B13Ab18D40FaE1A962700C84ADEa
0x391716d440C151C42cdf1C95C1d83A5427Bca52C3
0xC2eC5Dd60CBD5242b8cdeB9d0d37Ff6024584631
While these figures are not yet very impressive, Optimism Collective's ability to expand horizontally is creating exponential revenue growth. Each L2 added to its Superchain helps to generate revenue that feeds the Optimism Collective's cash flow.
This revenue can be used to strike deals with promising future L2s on the Superchain.
A recent example is Kraken and its L2 Ink, which Optimism funded to the tune of OP24 million (around $41 million), in exchange for its future token (should it launch, which is still uncertain) and the assurance of its share of Optimism Collective's future revenues. It's a virtuous circle that can create a powerful exponential dynamic.
This budget can also be used by the foundation for "retro fundings", which aim to encourage the creation or use of dApps and therefore accelerate the adoption of Superchain L2s. This is another virtuous circle, since it can generate activity, fees and, consequently, revenue for the Optimism Collective.
Since Optimism, and by extension its OP token, are at the heart of the Optimism Collective and the Superchain, the OP token indirectly represents the success of this ecosystem.
What about revenue sharing? For the moment, the OP token has no purpose other than that of governance.
That said, there is nothing to prevent governance participants from proposing revenue sharing. However, this is unlikely to be accepted while the Optimism Collective is in its expansion phase, as it needs its revenues to fund future operations and expand as much as possible.
Creating a revenue share today would be tantamount to imposing a glass ceiling for the Superchain and its participants.
Contrary to popular belief, the share of revenues generated by the Superchain does not accrue to the team. They therefore have no reason not to redistribute them to the governance participants when the time comes.
It should be noted that the Optimism Collective's vision does not stop at 50 L2s for the Superchain, but is aiming for more than 1,000. If the collective manages to realise this vision, while unifying liquidity and giving its users the impression of being on a single gigantic blockchain, then we can imagine a Superchain generating tens or even hundreds of millions a month.
This revenue would be more than enough to support the collective's operations, while sharing some of it with holders/stakers. This would create an additional incentive to buy the OP token, which would directly represent the success of Optimism, the Optimism Collective and its Superchain.
Conclusion Even without a true Superchain yet, the OP Chains ecosystem is showing real strength in the L2 environment and growth that should continue to accelerate through network effects.
Each L2 added to the future Superchain represents an additional revenue stream. Optimism, in addition to choosing relevant players and giving them the keys to success, goes so far as to financially help the ecosystem of these L2s to get off the ground.
The OP token is currently only useful for governance; the Superchain's performance therefore has no direct impact on the OP token for the time being.
On the other hand, it's easy to assume that one day it will be used for revenue sharing. In the meantime, we can count on speculation to create buying pressure if investors see Optimism, the Optimism Collective and its Superchain as having a bright future.
