The highly anticipated Bedrock hard fork for Optimism, a “layer 2” scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain, has been scheduled for June 6th. According to the Optimism team, the upgrade is set to commence at 16:00 coordinated universal time (UTC) and is anticipated to last between two to four hours. During the specified period, customers cannot make deposits or withdrawals.
The Optimism Foundation has proposed a protocol upgrade that has been hailed as the most extensive one ever released on the OP mainnet. This complete rewrite has been in the works since February and is set to revolutionize the industry.
In the latest proposal, it has been stated that the upcoming upgrade would provide “unprecedented performance and functionality” by offering a higher level of modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence for layer 2 solutions.
Fierce competition is underway to secure the top spot as the leading Ethereum scaling solution. According to L2Beat, Arbitrum is leading the pack, closely followed by Optimism and several rollups utilizing zero-knowledge cryptography. Optimism has recently achieved significant victories as both the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) have announced plans to expand the network in the past few months.
The OP token of Optimism has experienced a significant surge, with a remarkable 77% increase in value thus far in 2023. This impressive growth outpaces the 52% rise observed in ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain. Messari reported it was revealed that the Optimism community was approved for an upgrade in April. The vote in favor of the upgrade was an overwhelming 99.87%.
Optimism employs optimistic rollups, a method that allows for the consolidation of several transactions into a single one for the sake of recording on the Ethereum blockchain. In total, the network contains about $863 million in unaccessible funds.
