Swell announces changes to its development strategy, moving from Polygon CDK to OP Stack to build its own Layer-2 restaking.
Swell "makes a U-turn" and chooses OP Stack instead of Polygon CDK to develop Layer-2
The trend of Layer-2 development continues, with many projects deciding to build their own chains. However, the current "headache" is choosing which toolset to use to build L2, among the myriad options like Optimism's OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, zkSync's ZK Stack, or Polygon CDK.
But it seems that OP Stack is gaining an advantage, thanks to Optimism's Superchain ecosystem - a collection of Layer-2s built on the Optimism network. This ecosystem currently includes notable names such as Base, Unichain, World Chain, Soneium, Celo, Aevo, Fraxtal, Mode Network, Manta Pacific, Zora Network, Ancient8 Chain,...
Recently, the Superchain has welcomed a new member, Kraken's Layer-2 Ink, and it has been revealed that Optimism has promised to allocate 25 million OP tokens to Kraken to bring Ink onto its network.
On October 29, 2024, another name has announced the use of the OP Stack - Swell.
In March, Swell's Liquid Restaking solution said it would develop Layer-2 on the Polygon CDK toolset. However, the market is changing rapidly, and it seems that Polygon is no longer suitable for the project's development direction.
Swell L2 is migrating to Optimism! ✨🔴
— Swell (@swellnetworkio) October 29, 2024
The move will see Swell L2 join the Superchain as an Optimistic Rollup built on the OP stack.
An Ethereum-aligned scaling solution, the OP Stack powers all blockchains in the Superchain with the same modular open source and MIT-licensed… pic.twitter.com/19xj6Br7N1
Despite announcing the "move" to OP, Swell still expressed gratitude to Polygon:
"Due to changes in strategy and direction, Swell will move out of Polygon CDK, but we continue to believe in the comprehensive ecosystem that Polygon is building."
Swell founder Daniel Dizon shared the new direction:
"Superchain is the home of the biggest successful DeFi projects today, with 4 out of the top 5 chains using Optimism's OP Stack.
Swell is excited to collaborate with OP Labs and the Optimism Collective to build our shared vision of scaling Ethereum - and making Swell L2 the home for all reStaking activities within the Superchain."
Swell's L2 is currently in development and is expected to launch its testnet soon.
In addition to the "move", there is a major change in the new L2 structure, which is the use of ETH as the gas fee token, instead of the previously designed rswETH (liquid restaking token developed by Swell in collaboration with EigenLayer).
On October 10, Swell officially opened the SWELL token Airdrop for users holding Pearls, allocating 8.5% of the total supply for the Airdrop.
Compiled by Coin68
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