Optimism to Recognize ETH as a Native Token Alongside OP
The layer-2 solution Optimism has announced that it will recognize ETH as a native token of the network alongside OP.
Optimism to Recognize ETH as a Native Token Alongside OP
Following the Bedrock upgrade, Optimism will officially treat ETH as a native token of this layer-2 network, operating alongside OP.
This information was confirmed by Maurelian, head of the OP Labs technical team, in an interview with CoinDesk. Maurelian revealed, “ETH will be considered a native token for both Ethereum and Optimism, rather than an ERC-20 token.”
Earlier, CoinDesk reported a transaction transferring ETH worth up to $550 million from the bridge between Optimism and Ethereum to another smart contract on Arbitrum, on the same day as the Bedrock upgrade.
The smart contract, named Optimism Portal, is responsible for handling data transfers between Optimism and Ethereum and serves as the entry and exit point for the Optimism layer-2.
Maurelian added:
“Post-Bedrock, we have introduced a new funding method for the Optimism Portal contract. ETH will be recognized as a native token on the network, allowing transactions from layer-1 to layer-2 to both include data and send ETH. However, to achieve this, we had to separate ETH from other ERC-20 tokens in the Optimism bridge and move it to the Portal.”
This means users will be able to easily transfer ETH between Ethereum and Optimism without needing to use a bridging solution.
On Optimism, ETH will serve as the transaction fee currency, while OP will be used for governance purposes.
On June 7th, Optimism successfully completed the Bedrock upgrade, which included various changes to enhance network performance and reduce transaction fees.
Despite this, OP’s price in early June 2023 has been on a downward trend due to the overall market conditions and a recent token unlock event equivalent to 9% of the circulating supply.
4-hour chart of the OP/USDT pair on Binance at 08:45 AM on June 9, 2023
