OP Hits Fresh Highs After Foundation Unveils ‘Bedrock’ Upgrade

Optimism, the second-largest Layer 2 network, is scaling new heights, with both the total value locked (TVL) on the network and its native OP token surging to record highs.

The Optimism Foundation proposed a major upgrade to the protocol on Feb. 1.

Dubbed ‘Bedrock,’ the upgrade proposes to completely rewrite the core components of the Optimism architecture and aims to “offer a new level of modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence for Layer 2 solutions.”

The new modular architecture will split the OP stack into three components – consensus, execution, and settlement.

If approved by Optimism governance, the upgrade is expected to take less than four hours to implement, and users of the network can expect deposits and withdrawals to be paused while it is underway.

Binance Launches BUSD On Optimism

On Feb. 2, Binance, the leading centralized exchange, launched its BUSD stablecoin on Optimism. The launch was BUSD’s sixth network deployment, following Ethereum, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, and Tron.

BUSD is the third-largest stablecoin by market capitalization at $16B, equating to 11.6% of the sector’s total. Users can now deposit and withdraw BUSD tokens on Optimism.

Optimism’s OP token rallied to a new all-time high of $3.19 on Feb. 3 on in the wake of the announcements and is up 225% since the year began.

Scaling Ethereum

Optimism is a Layer 2 rollup network designed to help Ethereum scale.

Rollups work by bundling together transactions on Layer 2 and submitting them in batches for final validation on the Ethereum mainnet, reducing the fees incurred for each individual transaction.

Optimism’s TVL is retesting its all-time high of roughly $1.9B after gaining 66% since January began.

The network’s leading DeFi dApps posted impressive gains in January.

Optimism’s top five dApps — Velodrome, Synthetix, Curve, Aave, and Uniswap V3 — are up 94%, 49%, 89%, 5%, and 69%, respectively, over 30 days, according to DeFiLlama.

Optimism now represents 33% of Layer 2 TVL, according to L2 beat.