185 - The Superchain Explained with Jesse Pollak & Ben Jones
Aug 28, 2023
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Jesse Pollak, Creator of Base at Coinbase, and Ben Jones, Co-founder of Optimism, join the discussion on the revolutionary Superchain. Jesse shares how Base rapidly approached a million users in just two weeks, dramatically outpacing Ethereum in transactions. Ben elaborates on the vision behind the Superchain, emphasizing its role in integrating numerous chains for a billion users on blockchain. They explore the challenges of decentralization, chain interoperability, and the ambition to create connected digital nations within the evolving crypto landscape.
The super chain aims to bring different layer two chains together into a cohesive and standardized system, similar to how the internet brought various networks together.
Chains have incentives to join the super chain to access a larger network and conform to a shared standard, upholding the principles of open, neutral, and permissionless block space.
Coinbase's involvement in the super chain demonstrates a path for large public companies to get on chain, paving the way for economic freedom and broader adoption of on-chain transactions.
Base's participation in optimism governance involves contributing to technical developments, actively governing the super chain, and ensuring the open and neutral nature of block space while safeguarding their sovereignty as a chain.
Deep dives
The Super Chain: A New Structural Element
The concept of the super chain emerges as a new structural element in the cryptocurrency space. Similar to how the internet brought various networks together, the super chain aims to bring different layer two chains together into a cohesive and standardized system. This ensures the scalability and homogeneity of block space, providing users and developers with a consistent experience across chains. The super chain is governed by the law of chains, a proposed amendment to the optimism collective's constitution. This framework allows for the coordination of multiple chains while preserving their sovereignty and ensuring alignment with open, neutral, and permissionless principles.
Joining the Super Chain: Social Considerations
Chains have incentives to join the super chain for various reasons, including access to a larger network and the ability to conform to a shared standard. By joining, chains become part of a larger collective that upholds the principles of open, neutral, and permissionless block space. This participation requires adherence to the law of chains, which lays out governance processes and protections for stakeholders, including chain governors, sequencers, and users. The law of chains ensures that chains have economic and governance sovereignty while contributing to the collective development and maintenance of an open and standardized super chain.
Coinbase's Role in Onboarding Large Public Companies
Coinbase's involvement in the super chain showcases a path for large public companies to get on chain. They are paving the way by building base, contributing to the OP stack, and upholding open and neutral block space. By joining the optimism governance and funding public goods, Coinbase demonstrates a commitment to decentralized governance and infrastructure. Coinbase's approach provides an example for others to follow, encouraging economic freedom and broadening the adoption of on-chain transactions.
Alignment and Participation in Governance
Base's participation in optimism governance involves contributing to technical developments, adhering to the law of chains, and actively governing the super chain. They will receive a grant tied to their contributions and play a role in decision-making related to the governance of the collective. Base aims to ensure the open and neutral nature of block space while safeguarding their sovereignty as a chain. The retroactive nature of Coinbase's involvement demonstrates the organic growth of their participation based on their contributions and the alignment of incentives between Coinbase, optimism, and the super chain.
Uniswap mobile wallet for iOS released
Uniswap Labs recently launched the Uniswap mobile wallet for iOS, allowing users to easily trade tokens on the go. The wallet offers features such as creating or importing a new wallet, buying crypto with a debit card, low fiat on-ramp fees, seamless swapping on various networks including Mainnet, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, storing and displaying NFTs, exploring Web3 functionalities, and using Wallet Connect for Web3 applications.
Liquid staking with ETHX from Stater
Stater introduces ETHX, a liquid-staking token designed to maximize rewards and secure Ethereum. Running an Ethereum node with just 4 ETH through Stater brings lower capital requirements and higher returns compared to solo staking. Stater's multi-pool architecture ensures decentralization and scalability, and the platform has extensive experience in building liquid-staking solutions and partnerships across multiple proof-of-stake blockchains. The goal is to provide DeFi utility to the ETHX token and expand integrations and partnerships across Ethereum.
Building the Super Chain: Decentralization and Fault Proofs
The podcast explores the path towards creating the Super Chain, a network of interconnected blockchains. It discusses the importance of decentralization through fault proofs and highlights the ongoing work to achieve this. The podcast mentions the need for multiple redundant implementations of fault proofs for added security and immutability. The focus is on closing the gap between stage zero (no fault proofs) and stage one (with fault proofs but training wheels) to eventually reach stage two where fault proofs are fully decentralized and immutable. The episode emphasizes that building an ecosystem of multiple clients and fostering community accountability is key to achieving these goals.
----- Base! Coinbase’s Layer 2 has almost hit 1 million users in 2 weeks. It has more transactions per second than Ethereum mainnet. Jesse digs into the magnitude of this development. Base chain was built on Optimism’s tech stack. This is just 1 chain of many thousands we’ll see over the coming years. How do we tie them all together? Ben dives into all things Superchain. The Superchain is how we bring 1 billion people onchain.
0:00 Intro 7:42 Base Launch Reflection 9:53 Optimism’s Reflection 11:35 Coinbase x Optimism Collaboration 17:14 OP Stack Incentives 23:43 Base’s Impressive Numbers 26:26 Explaining the Superchain 31:40 Why Join the Superchain? 33:55 The Law of Chains 45:26 The Coinbase Onchain Formula 51:15 Base Part of Optimism Governance 58:40 What About Other L2s? 1:04:56 Optimism Collective’s Fee 1:08:25 The Tech Behind the Superchain 1:13:34 Superchain Timeline 1:15:45 Fault Proofs 1:18:36 Risk Profile of Base 1:22:15 Optimism’s Governance Minimization 1:24:10 Wen Fault Proofs & Stages 1:30:00 How Many Clients Does Optimism Have? 1:33:36 Near Term Focus For Base 1:37:01 Near Term Focus For Optimism 1:38:27 Closing & Disclosures
