Optimism aims to solve Ethereum's scalability challenges through an innovative layer 2 scaling technique called optimistic rollups.
Ethereum has seen tremendous growth in usage over the past few years, which has led to higher transaction fees and network congestion. To address this scaling challenge, developers have been exploring various layer 2 solutions that can process transactions off-chain and post the results occasionally on Ethereum. One such scaling solution is Optimism, which uses a technique called optimistic rollups.
Optimistic rollups work by bundling transactions together off-chain and only posting the transaction state root on Ethereum. This greatly reduces the load on the main Ethereum chain. However, to ensure security, the transactions are still validated on Ethereum before becoming permanent. With optimistic rollups, validation is done in an optimistic manner - the transactions are assumed valid unless someone posts a fraud proof showing otherwise. This allows near-instant transactions while maintaining Ethereum's security.
The goal of Optimism is to scale Ethereum and bring transaction costs down by throughput and reducing bottlenecks. By moving transaction processing off-chain, it can significantly increase the number of transactions Ethereum can handle. This will help support more decentralized applications and use cases on Ethereum that were previously not feasible due to high gas costs.
Some key applications that could benefit from Optimism include payment networks, decentralised finance apps, NFT marketplaces and exchanges. By providing a scalable platform, it opens up Ethereum to a wider range of users. Industries like gaming, social media and digital assets can also leverage the capabilities of Ethereum in new ways through Optimism's optimistic rollups.
The list of exchanges and services that support the Optimism Network is growing rapidly. Visit this article to learn more, Exchanges with Optimism Support.