Boba

Boba is another L2 Ethereum Optimistic Rollup scaling solution built by the OMG Foundation, which originally began as a fork of Optimism and the OVM (optimistic virtual machine). Boba offers fast withdrawals backed by community-owned liquidity pools (similar to other bridge solutions discussed below), reducing the challenge period from ~7 days to minutes, while incentivizing Liquidity Providers (LPs) with yield-farming opportunities.The team plans to completely rewrite the codebase for their upcoming v3 which is set to be rolled out on mainnet in the coming months. Boba is production-ready with a functioning bridge and a native DEX called OolongSwap. The Boba token (BOBA) is a governance token for the Boba DAO, and can also be staked for rewards on Boba Network.  It can be traded on FTX, Poloniex, Bitfinex, ByBit, and other exchanges.

Source

Resources

• Block explorer
• Boba Network Gateway (bridge)
• Developer portal

Metis

Metis is an L2 scaling solution on Ethereum that is best described as an EVM-compatible, sharded Optimistic rollup features a Dynamic Bond Threshold staking design (a mouthful, right?). It launched its mainnet, Andromeda, in November 2021. The METIS token is used to pay transaction fees on the rollup, stake to become a sequencer, and for incentives for fraud challenges. 

The Dynamic Bond Threshold staking design dictates that Sequencers cannot sequence blocks if their stake is worth less than the amount they are sequencing. Transactions are blocked until an eligible sequencer is found, limiting the size of the transaction value.

The Metis Virtual Machine (MVM) contains various decentralized autonomous companies (DACs) with their own separate, application-specific computational and storage layers. Additionally, a network of sequencers are randomly selected from the DACs to rollup and submit transactions back to the L1. These parallel sequencers enable higher scalability compared to the single party approach by other ORs. 

Source

Despite the separate execution layers,  liquidity between the shards can flow frictionlessly due to the MVM cross-layer communication protocol. The goal is to scale horizontally with distinct, application-specific execution layers that are while also preserving the security of Ethereum via fraud proof submission to mainnet. 

Finally, Metis will also implement a fraud detection system call the Ranger system. In essence, the Ranger system is a network of nodes that monitor sequencers for bad behavior. The Rangers constantly check the fraud proofs for validity. This active “watchdog” system results in a shorter challenge period as since some simultaneous effort to detect fraud has already occurred and not just assumed to be valid.  The Ranger system looks to be integrated into the Andromeda network in Q2-Q3 2022.

With the launch of the Ranger System comes the beginning of mining rewards for Rangers. Five million METIS tokens have been reserved for these incentives and are designed to be distributed over nine years.

The token distribution is as follows:

Founding Team: 7% 

MetisLab Foundation: 4%

Advisors: 1.5%

Investors: 18%

Airdrop: 6%

Liquidity Reserve: 6%

Community Development: 9%

The remaining 47.7% of the lifetime token supply will be minted over the next ten years.

Total supply after 10 years: 10M

Pros

Parallel sequencers

Withdrawal period could (theoretically) take minutes (rather than days)

Plans to inherit Optimism’s EVM Equivalence

Resources

Chain explorer

Guides

TVL

Charts