I just noticed an interesting thing — Optimism (OP) is currently becoming the focus of the crypto community, not only because of the strong price increase but also because of what’s happening on this chain. On-chain data shows assets on OP growing steadily, with daily transaction volume remaining around 200,000, and independent users exceeding 1.6 million. What’s truly impressive is that the average gas fee is only about 150% of the Ethereum mainnet, significantly lower.

So what is OP and why does it continuously attract capital like this?

OP is basically Ethereum’s Layer 2, but it operates as a public, general-purpose blockchain. To understand better, I want to dive into the main components that make up this ecosystem.

The DeFi on OP is relatively complete. Velodrome is the dominant DEX, with TVL far surpassing other projects, even beating major names. Velodrome is designed based on the Solidly model, focusing on building large trading markets on OP. The interesting part is that it integrates veToken mechanisms and game theory, with two main tokens: VELO (an ERC20 received through staking) and veVELO (NFT governance token). Over the past six months, almost all new VELO tokens created have been locked, demonstrating the effectiveness of this mechanism (3,3). Transaction fees are only 0.02% to 0.05%, providing users with a better experience compared to other exchanges.

Besides Velodrome, leading Ethereum projects like Uniswap V3 and Curve have also been deployed on OP thanks to EVM compatibility. Users familiar with these platforms can easily switch to OP without changing their habits.

Regarding lending, AAVE V3 has launched on OP with features like cross-chain asset flows and efficiency modes. Sonne Finance is OP’s native lending platform, offering money markets for key tokens. Notably, Sonne uses Velodrome in its token strategy, creating a native DeFi Lego ecosystem on OP.

On derivatives, besides Perpetuals migrated from Ethereum, there’s Pika Protocol. Pika includes a perpetual contract exchange and a stablecoin supported by decentralized derivatives tools. It uses a virtual AMM (vAMM) as its foundation, with low fees and good capital efficiency.

Beyond DeFi, the OP ecosystem also expands into NFTs and gaming. Quix was the first native NFT platform on OP, allowing users to create and trade NFTs with low fees, saving nearly $300,000 compared to Ethereum. OPCraft is a voxel game on-chain developed by Lattice, where everything from rivers to diamonds exists on-chain, with every player action happening as a transaction.

But what really changes everything is OP Stack. To understand what OP is in this context, I need to explain its modularity. OP Stack divides blockchain into three layers: execution layer (handles transactions), settlement layer (verifies transactions), and consensus layer (syncs the ledger). Instead of building a blockchain from scratch, developers can now use OP Stack as a modular toolkit, easily customizing each layer as needed.

OP’s vision is to build a “superchain” rather than a traditional multi-chain structure. When many chains share a common sequential layer, they can interact atomically across chains, creating a seamless experience for end users. The boundaries between chains will disappear.

Currently, OP is improving its first version through the Bedrock upgrade. As OP Stack matures, Optimism will almost build a “OP universe” with OP at its core, similar to Cosmos. L2 and L3 chains based on standardized OP will see explosive growth.

The opportunity for users is clear: participate in different application chains that OP aims to develop. If you want to benefit from the OP ecosystem, you need to create influence — either by building innovative applications on OP Stack or by becoming an early influencer. Based on recent ecosystem incentives, OP’s stance is very clear: influence creates wealth. This is a strong signal for those who want to join this modular revolution.