Bankless The State of Optimism | Ben Jones & Karl Floersch (SotN 8/10)
Aug 11, 2021
Ben Jones, co-founder and chief scientist of Optimism, and Karl Floersch, CTO of Optimism and experienced cypherpunk, dive into the complexities of Ethereum's scalability. They discuss the revolutionary Optimistic Rollup, the transformative role of Layer 2 solutions, and the importance of collaborating across various protocols. The conversation also touches on philosophical questions surrounding power, responsibility, and the mission to improve humanity through innovation in the blockchain space, all while providing intriguing insights into the future of decentralized finance.
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Optimistic Execution
- Optimism's core insight is optimistic execution, making transactions cheaper by assuming they will go well.
- Disputes only arise in exceptional cases, similar to how checks are only disputed if they bounce.
Eureka Moment
- At Scaling Ethereum 2019, Optimism's idea clicked when they realized how to scale Uniswap within Ethereum's framework.
- Vitalik Buterin recognized the idea as similar to his 2014 "shadow chains" concept.
Minimize the Diff
- Optimism's design philosophy is to minimize differences between its protocol and Ethereum's.
- This compatibility is key to their approach of scaling Ethereum natively, rather than reinventing the system.