I first came across Optimism when Coinbase were giving users $5 worth of their native token on their now defunct Earn programme and it was very much a case of collect it, convert it and move on and the less said the better other than a quick (and rare) thank you to Coinbase’s generosity. However, recent times have forced me to go back and have a bit more of a look as it seems that the Optimism Network seems to be gaining a lot of traction.

On the plus side…

Optimism’s strengths lie in its scalability and low fees, through its use of optimistic rollups to process transactions off-chain and in turn reducing Ethereum’s congestion and then offering fees up to 10x cheaper. With its strong Ethereum alignment, it inherits Ethereum’s security guarantees and is designed to be fully compatible with Ethereum smart contracts, making migration seamless for developers. All of this is underpinned by a unique governance model via Optimism Collective and Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF), which rewards projects that benefit the ecosystem.

One other advantage worth a mention, is the user-friendliness for developers of their code, which can be “copy-pasted” from Ethereum to Optimism without major changes, which in turn results in a lowering of barriers for adoption.

This positions Optimism, nicely to be a part of the “Superchain” vision, whose aim is to unify multiple Layer 2s under shared standards

However…

Despite all this, Optimism still depends on a small set of sequencers and governance participants, which naturally raises concerns about decentralisation and with its reliance on fraud proofs, for its Optimism rollups, can be slow and vulnerable if not widely monitored. And let’s not forget there are plenty of other players, such as Arbitrum and Polygon, who are vying for position and trying to occupy the same (or a similar) space on the market. Any future success is not in Optimism’s own hands and any sustained success will depends heavily on Ethereum’s scaling roadmap and whether developers choose Optimism over the alternatives, many of whom are in a stronger position.

Final thoughts…

Given all this I have not been able to find a more positive projection than $5 for a token by 2030 and with its current price being approximately $0.30 it does represent a reasonable return, but far from electric when compared to other currencies and of course this is best case scenario. Unless the projections are completely wrong in the end!

As always stay safe and well my friends.