Optimism Introduces Bedrock as Layer 2 Upgrade

Ethereum layer-two (L2) scaling solution Optimism announced an upgrade called Bedrock on its network, with the benefits of lower fees and faster speed for transactions completed through the Optimistic Rollup. The new feature is designed to be the first EVM-based rollup with Ethereum’s level of security and a much cheaper cost for transactions.

Bedrock Arrives

Optimism’s official blog post indicates that with Bedrock being adopted, Optimism aims to be the “Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalence,” making it easier for Ethereum-based protocols to transfer their applications onto Optimism.

“After Bedrock, EVM Equivalence doesn’t cut it anymore. By using all of Ethereum’s code, infrastructure, and design patterns, Optimism is aiming for something even bigger: Ethereum Equivalence.”

The dev team called the latest transition “seamless,” highlighting four major upgraded features: transaction fees will be the cheapest among all the rollups, Optimism nodes will sync up to 50x faster, deposits and withdrawals are now highly optimized, and throughput is improved as well.

However, the L2 network did not specify how much cheaper the transactions would become after the upgrade. As of now, transactions completed on Optimism currently cost about $0.29.

Besides, Optimism will launch the alpha for its fault-proof system, Cannon, to safeguard blockchains against accidents like unsynchronized node operators. It claims that Bedrock and Cannon is “the only rollup architecture capable of easily supporting multiple fault-proof and client implementation. ”

Binance – the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume – announced integrating the L2 upgrade by opening deposits for ETH on its network. However, withdrawals for ETH will only be available when Binance’s wallet has held a sufficient amount of such assets.

The company’s latest support of the L2 network could signify the protocol’s growing competitiveness among other L2 projects like Arbitrum and Polygon. They are all solutions designed to move activities away from the Ethereum mainnet, thereby reducing the information the layer 1 network needs to process and validate.

With the increasing demand for Ethereum-based transactions, major exchanges have begun supporting L2 networks. Besides Binance, KuCoin added support to Optimism last month, and FTX integrated Arbitrum in February.