Ronin is tapping Optimism’s tools to build its own chain, joining crypto heavyweights who also relied on the OP Stack to launch their L2 networks.
Blockchain gaming ecosystem Ronin is turning to Optimism’s OP Stack for its “homecoming to Ethereum” as a Layer 2 chain, joining crypto giants like Coinbase and Uniswap in using OP to launch their full-fledged Ethereum L2 solutions.
In an X thread on Tuesday, Sept. 9, Ronin said the OP Stack integration, a set of open-source tools, will let it process transactions up to 15 times faster, with block times between 100 and 200 milliseconds and the capacity to handle up to 1 million transactions per second.
On top of that, the network will also inherit Ethereum’s security, an important safeguard after Ronin’s past multi-million-dollar cross-bridge hack.
The move follows a brief bidding round that drew proposals from Arbitrum, Polygon, and zkSync to develop Ronin’s L2. But Optimism’s package seems to have offered the most appealing mix of cash, engineering support, and ecosystem access.
As part of the deal, Ronin will receive milestone-based grants totaling roughly $5 million to $7 million from the Optimism Foundation, Eigen Labs, and the Boundless Foundation, the firm said in the X thread. That includes OP tokens plus allocations in ZKC and EIGEN tokens.
The Defiant could not independently verify public results of the governance vote, as the vote doesn’t appear on Ronin’s proposals page. However, a spokesperson for the platform told The Defiant that the vote “was done through a private forum with the Governing Validators, it cannot be found on the Proposals page as it’s not on-chain.”
Close Partner
Commenting on the deal, Eli Haims, protocol product lead at Optimism’s OP Labs, told The Defiant that Ronin “was optimizing for a long term partner that they are confident in relying on and building with.”
“Optimism also provides Ronin with the flexibility to customize features to meet their unique needs – for Ronin this means their L2 will launch with $RON as a custom gas token, utilize EigenDA for data availability, and have a clear path to ZK validity proofs with Boundless,” Haims explained.
OP Labs product lead added that beyond the initial migration, Optimism will remain “close partners with Ronin to ensure they benefit from shared security, upgrades, and new OP Stack features in the future.”
Ronin’s transition from a standalone sidechain to an Ethereum L2, which it announced last month, is expected to be completed over the coming months, with no action required from users, Ronin clarified. Amid the news, the price of Ronin’s (RON) token jumped 6.8% to $0.53 in the past 24 hours, while Optimism’s OP token saw a 2% bump on the day, but is up over 8% in the past week.
With Ronin coming on board, Optimism is adding another big project to the growing list of prominent crypto projects — like Coinbase’s Base, Kraken’s Ink, and Uniswap’s Unichain — that have opted to use the OP Stack for their L2 chain launches.
In contrast, retail brokerage giant Robinhood opted for Arbitrum to build its own Ethereum L2.
