The airdrop serves as a gesture of appreciation to talented creators and their ability to infuse creativity into the blockchain.
Layer-2 scaling solution Optimism has announced the distribution of its latest and fourth airdrop. This comes a few months after it distributed 19.4m tokens to users. Dubbed “Optimism Drop #4”, the reward was dedicated to artists who have shaped culture across the Optimism Superchain and the ecosystem.
Optimism’s Airdrop: Over 22K Artists Receive OP Token
According to an official blog post, Optimism distributed 10,343,757.81 tokens to 22,998 artists and creators valued at $37.6M at official prices. The snapshot for the addresses was taken on January 10, 2024.
The airdrop serves as a gesture of appreciation to talented creators and their ability to infuse creativity into the blockchain. It emphasized that their efforts are crucial to the success of the Optimism Collective. Creators were rewarded based on their NFT art creation on the Optimism Superchain and Ethereum network between January 10, 2023, and January 10, 2024.
Furthermore, token allocations could increase depending on the total gas generated on the Optimism Superchain or Ethereum mainnet. For instance, artists who created engaging NFTs on the Ethereum mainnet and generated about 1 ETH worth of gas could earn 50 OP tokens. In contrast, those who generated transactions with an equal gas spend on the Superchain would receive 5,000 OP.
Optimism BedRock and Its Superchain Dynamic
Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade was completed in June 2023. The upgrade was designed to improve the proof modularity of the OP Stack, and it also helped Optimism create a Superchain of interconnected blockchains.
Optimism Superchain was developed as a network of layer-2 blockchains that facilitates horizontal scaling. The goal of the network was to share a common development stack (OP Stack) to allow individual chains to share a foundational layer for cohesive communication and interconnectivity.
This development creates many positives. Superchains can increase the processing capacity of the ecosystem as they facilitate seamless transactions across multiple chains.
Since the network group uses a single security protocol, there is increased trust and uniform security. This further enhances the network’s scalability, as more protocols can be included in the chain permissionlessly. Optimism states that Bedrock cuts gas fees by 40% by optimizing its data compression strategy and introducing systems to prevent reorgs.
This issue has plagued blockchains in recent times. Reorgs or chain reorganization occurs when two blocks are created simultaneously. This pushes node operators to replace a block with another to create space for a longer chain. These reorganizations can lead to higher costs for node operators, a subpar user experience, and increased network vulnerability.
Optimism was trading at $3.7 per token at press time, according to crypto data aggregator CoinMarketCap.