Will Optimism's OP Token Draw People Back to Layer 2s on Ethereum? - Ep.350

Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, and Ben Jones, cofounder and chief scientist at Optimism Foundation, discuss the current state of Ethereum Layer 2s, Optimism’s new governance structure, why Synthetix chose to build on Optimism, and more. Show topics:
what Optimism and Synthetix are how zero-knowledge rollups differ from optimistic rollups why Synthetix decided to build on Optimism what makes L2s more enticing to build on than other L1s how Optimism’s governance is going to change with the launch of the Optimism Collective and OP token what issues Synthetix has had with Discord governance and early token voting, and how they have now solved this by forcing users to consolidate wallet addresses what retroactive public goods funding is and how it could create a “flywheel” of development on Optimism why whales might be excluded from Optimism’s token grant to Synthetix why Ben thinks the future is about the “superchain” rather than multi-chain  what Kain and Ben think about bridging between L2s and Mainnet why Optimism is a staunch backer of EIP 4844 how the merge could affect Optimism and Synthetix Thank you to our sponsors!
Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021
Coinchange: https://coinchange.io
OnJuno: https://onjuno.com/

Episode Links

Guests
Ben Jones: https://twitter.com/ben_chain Kain Warwick: https://twitter.com/kaiynne
Synthetix
https://twitter.com/synthetix_io
Optimism
https://twitter.com/optimismPBC
Optimism Collective
https://optimism.mirror.xyz/gQWKlrDqHzdKPsB1iUnI-cVN3v0NvsWnazK7ajlt1fI
Synthetix Launching on Optimism
https://blog.synthetix.io/optimism-launch-announcement/
Synthetix Governance
https://docs.synthetix.io/governance/
Kain’s Blog
https://blog.synthetix.io/author/kain/
Rollups
What are the biggest risks to optimistic rollup chains? https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html#:~:text=Anatomy%20of%20a%20fraud%20proof  What is the difference between optimistic and ZK rollups? And why did Synthetix choose Optimism? https://blog.matter-labs.io/optimistic-vs-zk-rollup-deep-dive-ea141e71e075
EIP 4844
https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4844 https://www.eip4844.com/
The Merge
https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-ethereums-merge-was-delayed-and-why-it-wont-reduce-gas-fees-much/
Kain’s previous Unchained appearances
Ethereum killers episode https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-solana-and-binance-smart-chain-could-take-ethereums-lead/ How Synthetix became the second-largest DeFi platform https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-synthetix-became-the-second-largest-defi-platform/ DeFi summer https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-comp-5xed-on-day-1-and-what-this-means-for-a-defi-bull-market/
Optimism’s Bridging Solution
https://twitter.com/optimismPBC/status/1517548430297604096