How did OP Stack evolve step by step into the OP "Superchain"?

Author: LXDAO

Introduction
Last month, the WorldCoin Foundation announced the launch of the World Chain blockchain based on the OP Stack, which will join Optimism's Superchain and interact with other chains such as Base, Mode, OP Mainnet, and Zora.

You may have heard of OP, OP Stack, and Superchain. Curious minds might ask: What? Why? Where? This article will answer these questions, discussing the current state and vision of the Superchain, among other things. At the end of the article, we also provide a handy guide for one-click publishing of L2 / L3 operations.

Starting with Optimism

You must be familiar with Optimism, a Layer 2 solution based on Ethereum, designed to provide fast, stable, scalable, and cost-effective blockchain services. It alleviates network congestion by running on top of the Ethereum main chain (Layer 1), thereby reducing transaction costs and processing times.

Optimism utilizes a technology called Optimism Rollups, which bundles a large amount of transaction data together and processes and pays fees only once on the Ethereum main chain. This method not only speeds up transaction times and reduces costs but also maintains the high security that relies on Ethereum. Later, the Optimism Rollup technology was open-sourced and became OP Stack, an open-source blockchain framework announced by the Optimism Collective.

OP Stack can be understood as a toolbox for one-click L2 deployment, significantly simplifying the construction of L2 chains. These decentralized L2 chains developed based on OP Stack share security, communication layers, and an open-source technology stack, forming the vision of the OP Superchain.

Current Status ------ Deploying OP Stacks Across Multiple Domains.

Currently, OP Stacks have been adopted by several well-known projects, including Base, which now ranks first in various L2 NFT trading data: a Layer 2 developed by Coinbase, the Debank Chain launched by asset management application Debank, and the Farcaster Stack of the leading social protocol Farcaster. The diversity of these applications reflects the OP Superchain concept that OP Stack was designed to support from the outset.

What is a "Superchain"?

A "Superchain" is a multi-chain network structure based on Layer 2 (L2) technology, aimed at addressing the challenges of horizontal scalability in traditional blockchains. Traditional multi-chain architectures often face difficulties in collaboration and high overhead costs, while the "Superchain" treats each chain as "interchangeable computing resources," effectively commodifying blockchains, allowing developers to build cross-chain applications without increasing systemic risks.

In the "Superchain" model, various chains (such as OP chains) are standardized and integrated into a network formally managed by the Optimism Collective. These chains not only share security and communication layers but also share an open-source technology stack. This design allows developers to focus more on building applications across the entire Superchain without worrying about the specific technical details of individual chains.

Moreover, this design philosophy also means that the concept of blockchain itself can become more abstract, allowing developers to view the entire interoperable blockchain network as a unified entity, thus enabling more efficient development and deployment of new solutions. In this way, the "Superchain" not only optimizes resource utilization but also provides new possibilities for the future development of blockchain.

How OP Chain Ensures Security

In the "Superchain" bridging security model, security (i.e., validity) and liveness (i.e., censorship resistance) can be guaranteed. Security is ensured by the proof system, while liveness is guaranteed by the ability to submit transactions directly to L1. The combination of security and liveness means that if the OP Chain sequencer encounters issues, users can always submit transactions to L1, which will migrate their usage to a new OP Chain with a properly functioning sequencer.

Below is the official definition of "Superchain" by Optimism, which meets the following criteria:

| Attribute | Purpose | |---------------------|------------------------------------| | Shared L1 Blockchain | Provides complete ordering of transactions for all OP chains, i.e., the sequencer. | | Shared Bridging for All OP Chains | Gives OP chains standardized security properties. | | Low-Cost OP Chain Deployment | Allows deployment and transactions without incurring high L1 transaction fees. | | Configuration Options for OP Chains | Allows OP chains to configure their data availability providers, sequencer addresses, etc. | | Secure Transactions and Cross-Chain Messaging | Enables users to securely migrate data between OP chains. |

OP Technology's "Decentralization" Roadmap

As a framework supporter, OP Labs has done much work to enable OP Stack to support broader technological decentralization. For example, the Bedrock version supports multiple proof schemes and multiple clients. Multi-client fault proofing is a fundamental component of technological decentralization, and Bedrock's modular framework greatly influences the community's ability to decentralize the actual development of OP Stack.

Strategy - Maintain Honesty

In the pursuit of decentralization, it is important to maintain intellectual honesty about challenges. Specifically, writing complex and error-free code is very difficult but crucial, as any single vulnerability could have catastrophic consequences for any L2.

Strategy - Parallel Development of Protocol Upgrades

OP advocates for maintaining purposefulness, pragmatism, and caution in the steps of on-chain fault proofing. Achieving complete proof takes time, but the Optimism team believes that several protocol upgrades can be developed in parallel to meaningfully advance OP Stack's decentralization without waiting for fault proofing to be ready.

Constantly updating technical solutions has actually led to the discovery of two bugs in OP by the Arbitrum team ^[1]^. As a technology provider, this widely used open-source framework is always under scrutiny from the market and community, necessitating greater accountability.

Timeline and Milestones for Technological Decentralization

OP Stacks Superchain Layout Achieves Success in Business

According to data from L2Beat, as of May 4, 2024, the total value locked (TVL) in Layer 2 is $39.98 billion, of which OP Stack accounts for $18.61 billion, nearly half of the total TVL and ranking first. The Stack services of Optimism have been widely adopted, with more and more projects using the OP Stack framework to quickly build a new L2, such as Optimism, Base, Mode, Zora, Frax, Lyra, Ancient, Redstone, Worldcoin, Mint, and Lisk. This highlights the value of Stack services in market narratives.

How do OP Stacks ------ Evolve into a Superchain?

From a technical perspective, we answer this by extracting some code and official information.
Introducing SystemConfig Contract
The technical platform behind OP Stack, Bedrock, introduced the SystemConfig contract, which begins to define L2 chains directly through L1 smart contracts. This can extend to placing all information defining the L2 chain on-chain, including generating unique chain IDs, block gas limits, and other key configuration values. Here is a snippet of the SystemConfig contract ^[2]^:

/**
 * @title SystemConfig
 * @notice The SystemConfig contract is used to manage configuration of an Optimism network. All
 *         configuration is stored on L1 and picked up by L2 as part of the derivation of the L2
 *         chain.
 */
contract SystemConfig is OwnableUpgradeable, Semver {
    /**
     * @notice Enum representing different types of updates.
     *
     * @custom:value BATCHER              Represents an update to the batcher hash.
     * @custom:value GAS_CONFIG           Represents an update to txn fee config on L2.
     * @custom:value GAS_LIMIT            Represents an update to gas limit on L2.
     * @custom:value UNSAFE_BLOCK_SIGNER  Represents an update to the signer key for unsafe
     *                                    block distribution.
     */

    /*
     * @notice Minimum gas limit. This should not be lower than the maximum deposit gas resource
     *         limit in the ResourceMetering contract used by OptimismPortal, to ensure the L2
     *         block always has sufficient gas to process deposits.
     */
    uint64 public constant MINIMUM_GAS_LIMIT = 8_000_000;

    /**
     * @notice Identifier for the batcher. For version 1 of this configuration, this is represented
     *         as an address left-padded with zeros to 32 bytes.
     */
    bytes32 public batcherHash;

    /**
     * @notice L2 gas limit.
     */
    uint64 public gasLimit;

CREATE2 Generates Deterministic Chain Addresses
Based on the SystemConfig design, once the data is fully placed on-chain, a factory (Chain Factory) can be created to deploy configurations and all other required contracts for each chain. By using CREATE2 to generate corresponding contract addresses, we further expand on this step: this means that given a chain configuration, we can determine all bridge addresses associated with that chain. This also allows us to interact with the chain without deploying bridge contracts, making chain deployment nearly free and allowing chains to inherit standard security properties.
Communication Between OP Chains ------ "Chain Factory" Reuses OP Chain Data

Bedrock introduces a method for establishing L2 chains from L1 chains, where all chain data can be synchronized with L1 blocks. As the L1 chain factory expands to place all configurations on-chain, Optimism nodes can deterministically synchronize any OP chain with just one L1 address plus a connection to L1.
It is important to note that when OP chain synchronization is complete, the chain state is computed locally. This means that determining the state of the OP chain is completely permissionless and secure. Since all invalid transactions will be ignored by the local node computation process executed by nodes, the derived chain does not require a proof system. However, to ensure withdrawals on the Superchain, a proof system is still needed.
Modular Design of Sequencer with SystemConfig
Bedrock introduced the ability to set the sequencer address in the SystemConfig contract. With the introduction of multiple chains with their own SystemConfig contracts, OP chain deployers can configure sequencer addresses. This configurable sequencer design is called modular sequencing. This allows different entities to sequence OP chains while retaining the standard [Superchain Bridge] security model—this is a key step towards decentralizing sequencers.

Modular sequencing allows for permissionless experimentation with different sequencing models. Developers can adopt various sequencing protocols, such as round-robin sequencing, sequencer consensus protocols, price competitive sequencing (PGA sequencing), or first-in-first-out (FIFO) sequencing. We can expect that over time, more user-friendly sequencing standards will gradually emerge.
OP Chains Share a Technical Upgrade Path
To launch the initial Superchain with high confidence in security and decentralization, a decentralized security committee should be introduced to manage upgrades. The security committee should be able to update the chain's proof set, carry out delayed contract upgrades, and press the bridge pause button in emergencies while canceling ongoing upgrades.

The ability to pause the bridge in emergencies means that in the worst-case scenario, such as the leakage of a security committee member's private key, the result will be indefinite suspension of withdrawals, and bridge upgrades will be permanently canceled. In other words, the L1 bridge will be frozen. This follows the design principle that security should take precedence over liveness—that is, it should always prevent the loss of ETH or tokens (i.e., enforce security), even if it means that ETH or tokens are locked (i.e., sacrificing liveness).

Pain Points on the Road for OP Stack to Become a "Superchain"

Of course, before fully realizing the vision of a scalable blockchain, there are still some significant pain points that need to be addressed in becoming a Superchain. Anticipated pain points include:

• Withdrawal requests depend on a set of trusted chain provers.

• Cross-chain transaction speeds are slow and require waiting for a challenge period.

• Insufficient scalability for submitting transactions to the Superchain; transaction data must be submitted to a limited-capacity L1.

• Cross-chain transactions are asynchronous, which undermines the ability to execute atomic cross-chain transactions (such as flash loans).

• This has improved somewhat after EIP-4844.

• Lack of a user-friendly framework to build scalable applications utilizing multiple OP chains.

• Lack of a simple wallet to manage tokens and applications across multiple OP chains.

We envision that once these pain points can be resolved, we will be able to build decentralized alternatives that can replace the most complex web2 applications.

Mass Adoption of Superchain After 4844?

The launch of EIP-4844 coincided almost perfectly with the Delta upgrade of the Optimism ecosystem, making it a perfect match.

Data availability (DA) solutions like Celestia are primarily aimed at reducing the costs of rollups submitting data to L1, while 4844 provides a native solution that reduces the operational costs (OPEX) of OP chains by over 90%.

Before 4844, we saw that the main expenses of OP Stack were concentrated on L1 gas costs, as follows:

• L1 activity data on OP Stack chains (chain / L2 revenue / L1 fees / gross margin / L1 fee ratio):

• OP Mainnet: 2k ETH / 1.97k ETH / 30 ETH / 98.5%

• Base: 1.7k ETH / 1.37k ETH / 330 ETH / 80%

After 4844, the Superchain ecosystem is favorable for OP Stack, and more and more projects are willing to use L2 as a technical solution. We also hope to see a reduction in costs for blockchain solutions, providing more business opportunities for projects and enabling the possibility of mass adoption.

How to Use Superchain to Easily Deploy L2

How to implement this? The Superchain provides a platform called the Superchain Dev Console ^[3][4]^, which supports chains like Ethereum, Base, Fraxtel, Mode, OP Mainnet, Redstone, Lisk, and Zora as L1 or L2.

At the same time, there are also several one-click L3 deployment tools in the Superchain community, such as Mode team's Mode Flare. The architecture uses Pyth, Blockscout, and Goldsky, etc. ^[5]^.

In conclusion, we see Optimism's layout and the success of Superchain in the business landscape. OP Stacks have significantly lowered the barrier to launching a chain, and more teams are benefiting from the convenient and quick deployment of their own L2 and L3 using OP Stack. Will OP Stack become an industry leader like AWS or Alibaba Cloud, providing various infrastructures for developers to build their projects? Indeed, this decentralized technological solution can guarantee a certain degree of openness and security. From a design perspective, does the Superchain also pose potential risks of industry monopoly?

Time will tell.