Optimism's Superchain will be able to support up to 50 chains in the near term

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Optimism’s Superchain will be able support 30 to 50 chains in near future, but does size matter?

Optimism’s Superchain, which consists of layer-2 chains building with the OP Stack, has seen a lot of momentum this past quarter.

It announced that it’s bringing on new chains like Metallicus’ Metal banking L2, Worldcoin’s World Chain and Celo’s migration to an L2, among others.

Optimism’s chief growth officer Ryan Wyatt views it as a way for the Superchain to have “good representation of a lot of verticals."

For example, Superchain-based Redstone Chain focuses on web3 games, Mode Network is centered around DeFi, Coinbase’s Base is a general purpose chain and Zora hones in on the creator ecosystem.

“A lot of the moves you’ve seen the [Optimism] foundation make is to have better diversity and representation across the board,” Wyatt said on Token Relations’ Superchain Quarterly Webinar.

It’s not about being “overly fixated on size” of the Superchain.

“When you think about interoperability, we’re going to be able to support 30, 40, 50 chains over the next 12-18 months to be inside of this,” Wyatt said. “Long term we’re already making bets on ZK proofs with investments…so we can generate ZK proofs on the stack which will allow for increased horizontal scaling.”

But we’ll have to see how the L2 landscape plays out, Wyatt said. “It’s so easy and cheap to deploy a L2, that was not the case a year ago.”

Wyatt said we’ll see a “rubber band effect” where a bunch of people want to deploy L2s — but the reality is thinking about what does the dust look like when it all settles?

“I don’t know if chasing how many chains are in the Superchain is the right metric long term because you’ll see that [rubber band effect] inevitably happen,” Wyatt said.

Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.

The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️

For this week’s Thursday episode, we’re sharing our Optimism quarterly webinar that was with Optimism’s chief growth officer Ryan Wyatt and Zora co-founder Dee Goens, one of the networks built on the open-source OP Stack and is maintained by the Optimism Collective.

We discuss the Superchain’s growth in Q2 and how big it wants to become long term, as well as the process for funding ecosystem players and Ryan and Dee's outlook for the rest of 2024. There was also Q&A from the audience.

Talking Tokens episodes are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 6AM EST or YouTube at 10AM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen in!

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Monitoring blockchains

Looking at some of the biggest developments onchain.

• Layer-2 blockchain Base hit record TVL ahead of Coinbase’s Smart Wallet launch

• Ethereum’s total value lock is at $67 billion, near May 2022 highs

Taking on the tokens 

The total crypto market cap increased less than 1% in the past 24-hours to $2.64 trillion. It is up 4.35% over a 7-day period.

As for the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap…

These metrics were taken at 7:30 AM EST on Thursday.

Money and people moves

Latest updates on crypto startups that secured funding and industry players who are starting something new.

1. Ex-Polygon team secures $43M Series A round for blockchain-scaling solution Avail (Fortune)

2. Goldman Sachs’ head of digital assets Oli Harris left the investment bank after about four years

3. Tether invests $18.75 million in XREX to facilitate cross-border payments in emerging markets (The Block)

4. MoonPay lays off 10% of staff despite having ‘years of runway’ (The Block)

5. Bain Capital leads $35 million Series A for M^ 0, a network for minting digital dollar (Fortune)

   1. Speaking of…Bain Capital Crypto Raising Second Fund: Filing (CoinDesk)

Talking points for the road 

Here’s some headlines and topics that you can talk about at your next dinner party, crypto event or on a first date to look smart (results may vary.) 

1. Galaxy’s Novogratz Sees Bitcoin Topping $100,000 If It Regains March High (Bloomberg)

2. Bitcoin Crosses $71K as BTC ETFs See $880M Inflows in Best Day Since March (CoinDesk)

3. Ethereum ETFs Could Draw $4 Billion In First Five Months: K33 Research (Decrypt)

4. A small bitcoin allocation may make sense regardless of your thesis on the cryptocurrency, says Fidelity (CNBC)

5. Robinhood to Buy Crypto Exchange Bitstamp in Effort to Expand Outside the U.S. (CoinDesk)

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Please note that this content is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Any views shared should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research. We may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this newsletter.