Optimism Developers Integrate Fault Proofs into Smart Contracts

Users of Optimism can now independently initiate the withdrawal of ETH and ERC-20 tokens “without the involvement of any trusted third parties.” In essence, they can challenge potentially fraudulent or incorrect transactions.

? FAULT PROOFS & STAGE 1 HAVE ARRIVED ?

Open source, permissionless fault proofs are live on OP Mainnet, and with them the OP Stack arrives at Stage 1 decentralization.

This is a major step forward for the Superchain! pic.twitter.com/sEmfWkn2pf

— Optimism (@Optimism) June 10, 2024

Previously, users on OP Mainnet had to rely on operators to relay accurate state roots to the mainnet.

The Optimism Security Council can intervene and restore the system to an authorized state in case of malfunctions during responsible deployment. Additional guarantees allow the structure to effectively rectify errors, including resetting the withdrawal procedure if necessary.

Numerous teams, including OP Labs, Base, a16z crypto, and Test in Prod, contributed to the development and testing of the system.

The innovation is expected to extend to other chains based on the OP Stack, such as Base, Metal, Mode, and Zora.

The launch of the open-source functionality marked the implementation of the first stage of decentralization for OP Mainnet and OP Stack. Developers hailed it as a significant step forward towards the Superchain.

The product implements the concept of horizontal scalability through the construction of a “network of blockchains.” These utilize unified solutions such as bridges, decentralized governance, communication layers, and more, based on the OP Stack. 

The concept envisions merging OP Mainnet with other chains within the Superchain into a single network.

Most solutions based on optimistic rollups have yet to elevate networks to a new level through the implementation of fault proofs and support for decentralized contract updates. The main competitor, Arbitrum, has also integrated a similar system previously.

Back in May, the Optimism team added support for L3 solutions to the OP Stack.

In April, cLabs, the company behind the L1 blockchain Celo, announced that it chose OP Stack for its migration to Ethereum’s second layer.

In the same month, Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project announced the launch of its own L2 network, World Chain, based on Optimism’s software stack.