SLURP-9 | Deploy stake.link to Optimism

[LinkedEric]

@EqS

• Why were other L2s apparently not explored? It’s a bit surprising that Arbitrum wasn’t at least considered given it’s lead in both TVL (excluding the project tokens, Arbitrum’s TVL is $4.1b, while Optimism’s is $1.5b) and tech maturity. If we are going the L2 route, wouldn’t it be worthwhile asking a Arbitrum BD representative to provide input on this proposal and set out incentives that they could provide? SDL has real potential, we should leverage that in discussions.

Obviously Arbitrum was the leading contender vs. Optimism. Candidly both are in relatively nascent stages, and its a credit to the Optimism tech stack that they’ve got additional core contributors like Coinbase themselves given their selection of the Optimism stack for Base.

The primary differentiator here between Arbitrum and Optimism is twofold:

1. Theres relatively little LINK on Optimism. (~430k on Optimism vs. 2.8m on Arbitrum.) If we can 10x the LINK on Optimism, that represents an enormous win for stake.link as a protocol.
2. The relatively mature and robust grant program offered by Optimism for new protocols to deploy there. I’m aware that Arbitrum has recently started offering similar incentives.

@EqS

Has there been a risk assessment of using their protocol? I remember when a Bancor collaboration was previously considered by the team and that was wisely walked back.

Yes there certainly has. Their protocol (in particular the v2 contracts) have undergone security audits, and have an ImmuneFi bug bounty. But I’m not - and neither should you be - under a false impression that these are sufficient to guarantee security.

Ultimately the Bancor collaboration was only ever going to be about enabling them to put their dormant LINK to use in Chainlink staking.

The long story short is that Velodrome is the leading DEX on Optimism, and has enjoyed substantial support from the Optimism team.

@EqS

I do think this warrants getting input from Arbitrum as this L2 decision would lock us in for some time. In addition to Arbitrum’s far more mature tech, this rollup also has prominent Chainlink partners like GMX (who will be providing protocol revenue to stakers in the future).

A few points of clarification:

1. We are not, and will not be locked in to any one L2. The technical blockers to deploying (primarily CCIP based) once resolved will essentially allow us to deploy to any other network fairly rapidly.
2. I’d disagree that Arbitrum’s tech stack is “far more mature”. Optimism’s node software is much easier to launch, sync, and run. Both lack permissionless validation/fraud proofs and a decentralized sequencer. In my opinion anything prior to that is a question of how centralized it is. We’re working in a space of cutting-edge tech, and perfect must not be allowed to be the enemy of good. (Although I will always prefer secure over fast)
3. Both networks have active DeFi economies with multiple teams leveraging Chainlink services.