# Optimism Superchain. **Scaling Vision.**


Web3 builders have been working on reaching internet-level scale and bringing decentralized computing to the world for 10 years, facing criticism that "chains do not scale" as early as Bitcoin in 2013.

We need a multi-chain, trustless solution that doesn’t fracture our ecosystems, applications, or our ability to work together, bringing scalable and decentralized computing to the world.

**We need Superchain**

The Superchain is a horizontally scalable network of chains that share security, a communication layer, and an open-source development stack. It is a permissionless system for deploying new chains to a shared network.

This opens the door to massive scale, working applications, and a new revenue model that rewards application developers for the fees their chains generate and rewards protocol developers for the public goods they create.

Today, the *Superchain*, a network of chains that share bridging, decentralized governance, upgrades, and a communication layer, is a **concept** and an *in-flight project*, not a concrete reality. Ultimately, its actualization will depend on ecosystem contributions and development from across the OP Collective.

### **Why we need Superchain:**

Imagine we solved the blockchain scalability problem. Imagine if transacting on-chain was as cheap as interacting with centralized backends.

- Developers wouldn't need to worry about backend infrastructure. The chain guarantees correct execution, uptime, and [horizontal scalability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalability#Horizontal_(scale_out)_and_vertical_scaling_(scale_up)) of their app.
- Shared smart contract execution environment would supercharge composability far beyond today’s capabilities of traditional APIs.
- Developers wouldn't need to front all infrastructure costs for their users with standardized gas markets.
- Paying for a viral application would no longer be a barrier to entry, unlocking monetization strategies.
- Scalable apps that are easy to build would broaden adoption beyond the web3 community.
- Applications based on-chain would lead to data becoming cryptographically verifiable.
- Cryptographic verifiability would enable users to own their data and build *reputations* that transfer across all of their applications.
- The *reputation* could then be used for voting, loans, and collateral, facilitating *trust* on the internet.

### **Superchain Base: Horizontal Scalability and Commodification of Chains**

**Horizontal Scalability:**

Horizontal blockchain scalability fundamentally requires *multiple chains*. Hardware requirements to sync a chain increase linearly with the amount of compute the chain performs.

To achieve horizontal scalability, *we must run chains in parallel*.

**Commodification of Chains:**

By using L2 chains to create the multi-chain ecosystem, it becomes possible to treat chains as commodities—interchangeable compute resources. This allows developers to build cross-chain applications without introducing systemic risk and without incurring large overhead as new chains are deployed for their applications. The concept of a chain itself can become abstracted, making it possible to treat this network of interoperable chains as a single unit: the Superchain.

### **Superchain Concept:**

The Superchain is a network of L2 chains, known as OP Chains, which share security, a communication layer, and an open-source technology stack. Unlike multi-chain designs, these chains are standardized and intended to be used as interchangeable resources. This lets developers build applications that target the Superchain as a whole, abstracting away the underlying chains the apps are running on.

### **Properties and Possibility of the OP Superchain**

For OP to upgrade to a Superchain, it must have the following properties:

| Property | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| Shared L1 blockchain | Provides a total ordering of transactions across all OP Chains. |
| Shared bridge for all OP Chains | Enables OP Chains to have standardized security properties. |
| Cheap OP Chain deployment | Enables deploying and transacting on OP Chains without the high fees of transacting on L1. |
| Configuration options for OP Chains | Enables OP Chains to configure their data availability provider, sequencer address, etc. |
| Secure transactions and cross-chain messages | Enables users to safely migrate state between OP Chains. |

Once [Optimism](https://app.optimism.io/superchain/) satisfies these properties, it may be considered a Superchain.

To stay up to date with OP Collective developments and continue exploring the Superchain concept, follow the [OPLabs Blog](https://blog.oplabs.co/).