Kraken, the The world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange said Thursday it is launching its own layer-2 network on top of the Ethereum blockchain, based on technology borrowed from Optimism — the same provider that powers rival Coinbase’s layer-2 network, Base.
The revelation comes almost a year later CoinDesk broke the news that Kraken is considering its own layer-2 network, following the massive success of Base following its launch in mid-2023.
Ink, as Kraken’s new network is known, is built on the OP Stack, a customizable toolkit that allows developers to create their own blockchains using Optimism’s technology. The network is expected to go live in early 2025.
Optimism has seen significant success recently, with major crypto companies and even non-crypto companies choosing to use their blockchain as a blueprint for their own networks. In addition to Coinbase, the largest US-based crypto exchange, electronics giant Sony and decentralized exchange Uniswap has shared plans to build layer-2 networks based on the OP Stack. (Coinbase’s Basic launched in August 2023.)
Creating your own layer 2 is hardly new at the moment. Other layer 2 networks such as Polygon, zkSync, Starknet and Arbitrum have all come to market with their own stacks, hoping to convince companies to adopt the technology.
But Kraken’s choice could make OP Stack the undisputed leader among technology providers for new Ethereum Layer-2 networks.
Rival Arbitrum is the largest tier 2 project, with a total collateral value (TVL) of approximately $13.6 billion, according to the website L2Beat. That’s far ahead of Optimism’s $6.1 billion flagship network.
But in terms of the family of layer 2 projects using Optimism’s technology, there are at least 43 rollups, with a TVL of $18.1 billion. Collectively they are branded by Optimism project leaders under the term ‘Superchain’.
According to L2Beat, there are 29 projects using Arbitrum technology, totaling $14 billion.
“An L2 is only as good as the value it delivers to users, and that value is created by a thriving developer ecosystem,” said Andrew Koller, Ink’s founder, in a press release shared with CoinDesk. “As part of the Superchain, Ink is laying the foundation for an interoperable and pluralistic on-chain ecosystem that will attract developers and make Ink the ideal platform for next-generation DeFi applications and protocols.”
Read more: Kraken said he was looking for a partner to help build a Layer 2 Blockchain network
Credit : cryptonews.net
