Optimism Price

Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that aims to make Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper without sacrificing decentralization and security.

OP is the protocol's native governance token.

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What Is Optimism

High demand for Ethereum has become the reason for challenges in scalability, such as high gas fees and slow transactions. Optimism offers a scalable solution to the Ethereum network, which enables high-speed and low-cost transactions on Ethereum without sacrificing decentralization and security.

As a Layer 2 solution that runs on top of Ethereum, Optimism handles transactions off the Ethereum blockchain, helping decrease congestion and reduce gas fees. During a transaction, Ethereum’s Layer 1 handles security, decentralization, and data availability, while Optimism’s Layer 2 handles scaling. As a result, Optimist offers such benefits as lower fees, and faster transactions, along with Ethereum's decentralization and security.

OP, the native token of the Optimism ecosystem, allows holders to participate in The Optimism Collective governance system and powers project incentives, etc.

How Does Optimism Work

To scale Ethereum, Optimism uses rollup technology, a type of scaling solution that executes transactions outside Layer 1 on Optimism’s Layer 2 but posts transaction data on Ethereum’s Layer 1. This allows Optimism to scale the network and rely on Ethereum's security and consensus model simultaneously.

The rollup technology bundles up hundreds of transactions on Ethereum’s Layer 1 into a single transaction, and since there are multiple transactions in a bundle, the gas fee is distributed among all the users.

Optimism uses "optimistic" rollups where every transaction is assumed to be valid on Optimism’s Layer 2, and no computations are performed. If the system suspects fraud, it runs fraud-proofing to verify the transaction.

The solution can support all Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps), making them more efficient.

Optimism is governed through the Optimism Foundation and Optimism Collective. It's a new model of digital democratic governance where community members get certain governance rights through the OP token. The Collective rewards companies and communities that create or sustain public goods to provide incentives for the Ethereum ecosystem.

The Optimism Collective consists of two houses - the Citizens’ House and the Token House, which balance short-term and long-term incentives aiming to power the decentralized ecosystem's rapid and sustained growth. The Token House was established during the OP tokens' first airdrop. Token holders vote on the project incentives as part of a Governance Fund, protocol upgrades, etc.

The Citizens' House was established to facilitate and govern the projects' funding. Citizenship is granted through NFTs.

Optimism Airdrop and Tokenomics

The OP token is an ERC20 token. Instead of providing a genesis allocation of OP tokens, the team carries out a series of airdrops. The first airdrop occurred in May 2022, with an initial supply of 4,294,967,296, 5% of the total supply. Tokens were distributed to more than 250,000,000 addresses.

Through the token, Optimism aims to build an ecosystem that generates value for its members as follows:

• OP token holders receive value via revenue re-deployment.
• Contributors and builders get value from projects voted to have delivered value.
• Users and community members receive value from airdrops and project incentives.

In the ecosystem, value generation depends on the demand for OP block space. Tokens are distributed in the following way:

• 25% is allocated to the ecosystem fund and is divided between the governance fund (5.4%), the partner fund (5.4%), the seed fund (5.4%), and the unallocated (8.8%).
• 20% is allocated to the Retroactive Public Goods Funding (According to the solution designed by Vitalik Buterin, the DAO votes, and rewards projects that it finds useful).
• 19% is allocated through the use of airdrops over the years.
• 19% is allocated to core contributors.
• 17% is allocated to investors.

The Optimism team announced that 64% of the initial token supply would be distributed to the community. The Optimism Foundation and Optimism Collective will administer the distributions over time. In the first year, 30% of the initial token supply will be available. Then, token holders will vote to determine the Foundation's yearly token distribution budget. The Foundation expects to seek the following allocations annually:

• 15% of the initial token supply in year 2
• 10% of the initial token supply in year 3
• 4.4% of the initial token supply in year 4.

The OP price is volatile. Its highest price was $4.57, reached on May 31, 2022. OP has a market capitalisation of over $115 million, and its circulating supply is 214,748,364.00. The OP max supply isn't fixed.

Optimism Founders

Optimism was founded by the Optimism Foundation in 2019 in New York and is covered by donations, grants, and pledges. It was co-founded by former Ethereum Foundation researcher Karl Floersch, blockchain product manager at Nasdaq Jinglan Wang, and development lead at Cryptoeconomics, Kevin Ho.

Previously, Optimism was the non-profit research organization Plasma Group, focused on developing a second layer for Ethereum.

In January 2020, the organization announced switching to a startup called Optimism, which they founded in December 2019. The group raised $3.5 million from investors to fund the new company.

Optimistic Rollup was first introduced in June 2019, and an EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible testnet was launched in September. Optimism released its Alpha Mainnet and deployed the Open Mainnet in 2021.

As of July 2022, the total amount Optimism has raised through investment rounds is around $178.5 million. Among major investors are Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, and IDEO CoLab Ventures.

How to Buy Optimism OP

Several cryptocurrency exchanges allow you to buy and sell Optimism (OP) tokens. The top ones are Binance, OKEX, Huobi Global, Coinbase, KuCoin, Gate.io, Bybit, DigiFinex, Bibox, BitMart, Mexc, etc. To make the purchase, you must open an account on an exchange and get a crypto wallet to connect to the platform. The next steps are funding your wallet to start buying and selling Optimism and other digital assets.