Optimism saved users $1B in Ethereum fees

Optimism, perhaps the best-known Layer 2 scaling solution, has saved Ethereum network users more than a billion dollars in gas fees in a year according to its official blog post. These funds will be used to reduce network fees even more and to grow the Optimism team.

L2 solution secured $150M in funding round co-led by a16z

The popular Ethereum (ETH/USD) scaling solution raised $150 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The platform is now valued at $1.65 billion. The funds secured in the round will also be used to lower fees on the Ethereum network as well as hire new developers.

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Optimism wrote on their blog:

A year in crypto is a lifetime, and we’ve spent it relentlessly improving the architecture to provide the best-in-class developer experience, stability, and fee savings. This focus on DevEx now makes us the only EVM equivalent L2, providing full compatibility with all the top Ethereum developer tooling like hardhat forks, transaction traces, etc.

Fees dropped by almost a third last year

Optimism cut fees by over 30% last year. They keep pushing enhancements to the protocol to continue slashing fees. Call data compression is just weeks away from going live, and with it up to 40% additional savings.

Bedrock release to enable optimal transaction costs

Their next major release, Optimism: Bedrock, will additionally enable theoretically optimal transaction submission costs via Cannon, their next-gen fault proof. They are also contributing to EIP4844, which promises to reduce fees by up to 100x. They assure sub-dollar transactions are now a question of when.

Due to increase demand for NFTs, DeFi apps, and smart contracts on the Ethereum network, Optimism and other L2 solutions are becoming more and more popular. This slows transaction processing and increases gas fees.

Other pros of Optimism

Optimism uses so-called “optimistic rollups”, which combine transactions outside the Ethereum blockchain. This results in higher transaction speed and lower slippage and transaction costs.

Currently, Optimism ranks fourth amongst L2 solutions with TVL (total value locked) of around $440 million. According to data of tracker L2Beat, the TVL on L2 platforms amounts to $5.76 billion.