Optimism Moves Towards Progressive Decentralization With Security Council Launch

Optimism has launched its Security Council in a bid to transition towards progressive decentralization.

On Feb. 9, Optimism completed the first phase of its Security Council rollout, establishing a two-of-two multisig account tasked with authorizing protocol upgrades for the OP Mainnet. The wallet’s two signers are the Optimism Foundation and the first iteration of the Optimism Security Council.

“On Friday, the Optimism Collective officially launched its first Security Council, marking a major milestone in its decentralization journey,” Optimism said in a Feb. 12 blog post. “Phase 0… paves the way for more secure and community-driven protocol upgrades.”

Moving forward, Optimism plans to establish the Security Council as the sole entity responsible for implementing OP Mainnet protocol upgrades passed by governance.

“Phase 1 will see the Security Council become the sole actor responsible for signing upgrades to the protocol,” Optimism continued. “The Security Council is built on principles of transparency, safety, and community participation.”

Optimism ratified the first incarnation of its security council via a governance vote in December.

Its initial cohort of members spans representatives from prominent DeFi protocols and entities within the Ethereum ecosystem including the Ethereum Foundation, Base, Synthetix, MakerDAO, and L2Beat.

OP rallies

The move follows the price of OP appearing to be ramping up to retest its previous all-time highs of just above $4 from late-December and mid-January.

After pulling back to $2.69 on Jan. 24, OP has since rallied 40.5% to last change hands for $3.78 following a 4.5% gain in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. OP Mainnet is also on the verge of retesting its record TVL of $6.5B four weeks ago, currently sitting at $6.3B and boasting a 26% dominance over the Layer 2 sector, according to L2beat.