There is never a dull year in the Ethereum ecosystem. As we begin 2025, we want to take the opportunity to look back at the progress that has been made across Optimism and beyond. From the many upgrades to the OP Stack, to partnerships and collaborations that were formed, to the millions in OP rewards and everything in between, the growth of the Superchain has been nothing short of exciting. 2024 has been a pivotal year in shaping the future of Ethereum and the user-owned internet – yet the work continues.

Optimism is Ethereum

Optimism remains firmly committed to its mission of building the user-owned internet, with Ethereum at its core. What began as OP Mainnet – a single L2 chain designed to scale Ethereum's technology and values – has evolved into something far greater. Optimism is now home to the Superchain, a network of blockchains built on a shared standard codebase called the OP Stack. Together, these OP Chains are working to scale Ethereum.

The Superchain’s remarkable growth

In 2024, the Superchain ecosystem expanded beyond its wildest dreams. The Superchain isn’t just growing; it’s thriving. More people are using it, more apps are launching, and the ecosystem is becoming more sustainable with every passing day:

• 30+ OP Chains, with major players like Kraken (Ink), Sony (Soneium), Uniswap (Unichain), and World (World Chain) joining the ecosystem, alongside early pioneers like Base, Metal, Mode, and Zora.

• Nearly 50% of all L2 transactions on Ethereum are now powered by the Superchain ecosystem, demonstrating its ability to handle internet-scale usage.

• Total value locked in apps grew from $1.4B in December 2023 to $4.8B in December 2024.

• 319 apps are live on the Superchain, with 145 of them launched in 2024 alone.

• Daily transactions skyrocketed from 650K in December 2023 to 11.1M in December 2024 – a staggering 1600% increase.

Scaling Ethereum with the OP Stack

The OP Stack – the MIT-licensed, open-source development stack behind the Superchain ecosystem – made significant progress in 2024 through the dedication of its core contributors.

Fault proofs & Stage 1 decentralization

The year marked the launch of permissionless fault proofs, paving the way for OP Stack Chains to achieve Stage 1 decentralization. OP Mainnet successfully reached this milestone, while contributors began working to support multiple proofs and Stage 2 decentralization:

• Kona, a new Rust-based fault proof system is live on OP Sepolia, driven by the OP Labs team, the Reth team at Ithaca, and Sunnyside Labs.

• Succinct Labs released op-succinct, a ZK-powered validity rollup framework based on the OP Stack and Kona.

• RISC Zero released Kailua, a hybrid ZK-fault proof system also based on Kailua.

Advancements in Interoperability

Superchain and Ethereum-wide interoperability became a core focus in 2024. The vision for Superchain Interop materialized through Devnet Stable and the updated Dev Console, which provided developers with essential tools like Supersim, the SuperchainERC20 starter kit, and a multi-chain faucet to start experimenting with Superchain Interop from day one.

On the Ethereum-wide interop front, Optimism has emerged as a key driver in fostering community collaboration. At the Ethereum Interop Forum, the entire Ethereum community united to establish a shared goal and align on the next steps to make Ethereum truly interoperable. Optimism strengthened its commitment to ERC-7683 to deliver a unified Ethereum UX, while also developing ERC-7802 for cross-chain token interfaces.

More from core contributors

The OP Stack contributors shipped numerous impactful features in 2024, benefitting not only the Superchain, but Ethereum:

• After two years of R&D efforts, EIP-4844 delivered significant cost reductions for all L2s, with gas fees dropping more than 10x.

• Sunnyside Labs shipped span batches which cut overhead for running OP Chains by 90%, enhancing affordability and efficiency.

• RIP-7212 became available on the Superchain, delivering native passkey verification at lower cost – enabling developers to build smoother smart wallet experiences without the constraints of scale and cost.

• Superchain incident response capabilities received upgrades to leverage the collective security intelligence of the entire Superchain.

• Dev Console launched as a one-stop shop for developers building on the Superchain.

• The Superchain Registry and Blockspace Charters were introduced to provide transparency and clarity for the ecosystem.

Collaborative growth

The Optimism Collective continues to pioneer sustainable scaling for Ethereum while working together to create an internet that benefits all, and is owned by all. Optimism Governance supports the growth of the Superchain and sustains the Optimism Collective over the long term.

Governance milestones

Governance ensures that protocol development continues to happen in the best interest of the Superchain, that contributors are incentivized to build open source infrastructure, and that the Collective can reach its goals. Throughout the year:

• Governance passed 9 protocol upgrades, including the crucial fault proofs upgrade.

• The delegated supply of OP grew from 74M to 105M OP.

• 23M OP was dedicated to builders by the Grants Council to fuel ecosystem growth.

In 2024, the Collective launched its first Security Council, marking a significant step toward decentralization. OP Governance also moved to onchain treasury execution, advancing its progressive decentralization.

The year saw the establishment of a Standard Blockspace Charter and a shared upgrade system for the Superchain, and welcomed the first batch of OP Chains to the Chain Delegation Program.

By year's end, the Collective united around a core pillar of the Superchain product vision for 2025: Interoperability. This intent aligns all contributors toward a common goal: making the Superchain truly interoperable.

Retro Funding: Rewarding builders for positive impact

Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro Funding) is the Optimism Collective's impact-based reward mechanism that recognizes meaningful contributions on the Superchain. In 2024, Retro Funding distributed 20.4M OP through 3 rounds to 374 projects. Recipients included onchain builders deploying contracts to the Superchain, core contributors to Ethereum and the OP Stack, and developers of open source tooling and governance infrastructure.

Optimism remains committed to funding public goods that empower the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Through Retro Funding, we've become one of the largest supporters of Protocol Guild – a collective of L1 core developers – and other L1 client and infrastructure teams. In Round 5 alone, 3.1M OP was allocated to Ethereum core contributors. Additionally, the round included rewards to projects that are open source – a testament to our support of open source technology.

2024 was a crucial year for Retro Funding experimentation, which yielded valuable insights for the ecosystem. In 2025, the program will provide builders with more consistent support by transitioning from annual rounds to a continuous impact evaluation with regular rewards.

Rewarding users onchain

The Optimism Collective rewards users who create meaningful impact. In 2024, a total of over 20M OP was dedicated to reward more than 76K unique addresses through two airdrops.

Airdrop #4 recognized artists, creators, and pioneers who helped shape culture across the Superchain and the broader crypto ecosystem. Airdrop #5 celebrated power users who actively engaged with apps across the Superchain ecosystem. Over 550M OP remains dedicated for future airdrops to reward users who create meaningful impact.

Curious about your personal on-chain activity? Dive into the community-built REWIND app for a detailed look at your Superchain journey throughout 2024.

Driving user engagement

During 2024, the Superchain ecosystem launched four major initiatives to boost user engagement and activity, with more than 3.3M OP tokens distributed to winners.

• SuperFest showcased cutting-edge DeFi apps on the Superchain, encouraging users to explore and engage with these innovative platforms.

• The SUNNYs celebrated exceptional contributions from onchain artists, developers, and community builders across the Superchain ecosystem.

• Superhack brought developers onchain to build the future of the internet and experiment with tooling and ecosystems across the Superchain.

• We Love The Art celebrated the diverse talent and imagination of digital artists innovating onchain.

Looking ahead to 2025

With 2024 behind us, the Collective enters 2025 with relentless optimism. The focus for the year ahead is clear: Interoperability. By uniting the Collective around a shared objective, we’re bringing the Superchain closer to its ultimate goal – a seamless, scalable platform capable of supporting billions of users and developers.

Our priorities for 2025 are simple: cement the Superchain as the best place for DeFi, make it the easiest, more rewarding place to build and bootstrap applications with thoughtful developer tooling, and unite Ethereum through Superchain Interop and beyond.

The path ahead promises even more transformative progress as we build the future of Ethereum together. Here’s to another year of growth, collaboration, and optimism!