Best way to Explain what Optimism Crypto is.
Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling protocol for Ethereum applications. I.e., it makes transactions cheap. Real cheap. Optimism aims to make transacting on Ethereum affordable and accessible to all investor’s world wild.
Optimism is meant to look, feel and behave like Ethereum but cheaper and faster. For developers building on our Optimism, we aim to make the transition as seamless as possible. With very few exceptions, existing Solidity smart contracts can run on L2 exactly how they run on L1. Similarly, off-chain code (ie. UIs and wallets), should be able to interact with L2 contract with little more than an updated RPC endpoint
How Optimism system works
The smart contracts in the Optimism protocol can be separated into a few key components. We will discuss each component in more detail below.
- Chain: Contracts on layer-1, which hold the ordering of layer-2 transactions, and commitments to the associated layer-2 state roots.
- Verification: Contracts on layer-1 which implement the process for challenging a transaction result.
- Bridge: Contracts which facilitate message passing between layer-1 and layer-2.
- Predeploys: A set of essential contracts which are deployed and available in the genesis state of the system. These contracts are similar to Ethereum’s precompiles, however they are written in Solidity, and can be found at addresses prefixed with 0x42.
What is Chain Contracts
The Chain is composed of a set of contracts running on the Ethereum mainnet. These contracts store ordered lists of:
- An ordered list of all transactions applied to the L2 state.
- The proposed state root which would result from the application of each transaction.
- Transactions sent from L1 to L2, which are pending inclusion in the ordered list.
What is Verification?
In brief: If a proposed state root is not the correct result of executing a transaction, then a Verifier (which is anyone running an Optimism ‘full node’) can initiate a transaction result challenge. If the transaction result is successfully proven to be incorrect, the Verifier will receive a reward taken from funds which a Sequencer must put up as a bond.
What is Bridge Contracts Optimism
The Bridge contracts implement the functionality required to pass messages between layer 1 and layer 2,Optimism can be made to interact with apps on Ethereum via a process called “bridging”. In a nutshell, contracts on Optimism can trigger contract functions on Ethereum, and vice versa.
What is Predeployed Contracts
“Predeploys” are a set of essential L2 contracts which are deployed and available in the genesis state of the system. These contracts are similar to Ethereum’s precompiles; however, they are written in Solidity and can be found in the OVM at addresses prefixed with 0x42.
About The Author
