Boba, renamed by OMGX, demonstrates OMG’s ambition to regroup on the L2 track. However, under the agitation of Arbitrum and Optimism, the OP expansion track is in full swing. Whether Boba can finally share the game still needs time to observe.
Written by: a poplar tree
On January 5 this year, Vitalik Buterin stated in an article entitled “An Incomplete Guide to Rollups ” ( Rollups is a powerful example of Layer 2 expansion, which is expected to become the key to Ethereum in the short to medium term. The expansion solution and the cornerstone of Ethereum expansion.” This also brings the Layer2 concept of using Rollup as the main solution for Ethereum’s short and medium-term expansion into the public eye (an extended reading of ” An Overview of the Main Rollup Technology, Application and Data Performance of Ethereum’s Expansion “).
Immediately after Rollup, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum and other different technical ideas of L2 expansion solutions have been hot one after another. The concept of “pan-Layer 2” has gradually become the hottest topic of discussion in the encryption field, and it has also become the main battlefield for capital competition on the market. .
However, in addition to these hot projects, OMG Network, the leader of early Ethereum expansion, is particularly lonely. Until recently, the core contributor of the OMG Foundation and the developer of decentralized infrastructure solutions, Enya officially announced the launch of Boba Network. With the Beta version of the main network, OMG Network has returned to the L2 competition in a real sense.
OMGX: OMG’s second-tier expansion solution based on Optimistic Rollup
What is less well known is that OMG Network is one of the first Ethereum expansion projects that put forward the concept of “Layer 2” (based on Plasma), and was once “chosen” by Vitaklik as the main force of the Ethereum expansion plan, and once led the L2 track. Head item.
At that time, the Ethereum network also faced the pain points of high gas fees and transaction congestion, but it did not have the current diversified scene requirements such as DeFi and Lego. Therefore, the actual application scenarios with relatively urgent demand for expansion were basically limited to on-chain transfer payments . Therefore, OMG Network Mainly focusing on the concept of “two-tier payment”, it also focuses more on realizing low-cost and fast real-time payment scenarios .
However, with the subsequent rise and development of the DeFi scene and the continuous emergence of new solutions, OMG itself is based on Plasma and focused on payment positioning began to gradually appear awkward (extended reading “Ethereum Second Layer Expansion Road: The Decline of Plasma and the Rise of Rollup “) .
At the same time, in December last year, Genesis Block Ventures (GBV) also announced the acquisition of OMG Network. GBV stated that through this acquisition, it will give full play to its ecosystem and social network covering Asia, promote the accelerated growth of the OMG network, assist in the establishment of valuable partnerships, and further enhance the popularity of the OMG blockchain in Asia. application.
In this context, with the continuous development of the Layer 2 track this year, OMGX Network emerged as a new Layer 2 expansion solution jointly launched by the OMG and Enya teams.
The newly launched OMGX Network is based on the Ethereum Optimistic Rollup and runs in an EVM-compatible virtual machine, so it can theoretically process any smart contract running on the Ethereum. It is a general-purpose Ethereum second-layer expansion solution.
The Boba Network is exactly the name of OMGX Network, which means that Boba Network can be regarded as the OMGX Network after the “brand upgrade”, and it will continue to be jointly maintained by the OMG and Enya teams.
What exactly is Boba, which is renamed from OMGX?
Since Boba Network itself is an expansion solution based on Optimistic Rollup, it is no different from Optimistic Rollup-type expansion projects in terms of main function implementation.
But it also combines the experience of Enya and Boba team in network recharge, fast withdrawal, and cross-chain bridge. It has made bright innovations in the details of the user and developer experience, so the user’s fund withdrawal time and developer There are obvious optimizations on the two points of contract expansion .
Based on the liquidity pool, the withdrawal time is reduced to the minute level
Compared with Optimistic Rollup’s average fund withdrawal cycle of about one week, Boba Network provides users with a fast withdrawal function through a community-driven liquidity pool , which can shorten the withdrawal time from one week to a few minutes .
The realization of this function is also based on their experience in the development of Quasar (OMG Plasma’s fast exit function)-a liquidity pool mechanism is designed to allow liquidity providers to add sufficient token liquidity pools on different chains , thereby A faster cross-chain experience is achieved when users cross-chain.
According to the content of the official document, whether user funds are transferred from L1 to L2, L2 to L1 or between two L2, as long as the corresponding layers are compatible with EVM (in theory, Ethereum, Arbitrum, BSC, Polygon, etc. can be used ), you can achieve a minute-level confirmation experience.
However, the author understands that this is essentially a state channel solution like the Bitcoin Lightning Network, which is mainly to achieve the synchronization of the state of the same account owner between the chain and the chain, and Celer’s cBridge based on the liquidity pool calculates the same fund cross-chain ( Layer) Bridge Solution (Extended reading ” Asset Bridge has become a high-risk area for hacker attacks, is the cBridge hash time lock solution safer? “).
At the same time, users also need to pay a small fee to the liquidity provider during the process of cross-transfer of funds, so it is equivalent to providing users with a smoother cross-transfer experience than the traditional Optimistic Rollup category expansion plan. Use this liquidity pool to provide incentive farming opportunities for LPs.
Call algorithms outside the chain to implement scalable smart contracts
Algorithms have become the key driving force behind the explosive growth of the digital world. However, due to constraints such as the execution cost of L1 and integer operations, smart contract developers are not yet able to directly use algorithmic calculations on the chain.
Boba, on the other hand, can authorize smart contract developers to allow them to call algorithms from outside the chain to perform calculations and integrate the results into smart contracts , thus realizing the use of machine learning classifiers, multi-factor risk-return models, or privacy protection calculations. Kind of calculation model.
In this way, Boba makes smart contracts have scalable features. Ethereum developers can call code executed on web-scale infrastructure (such as AWS Lambda) when building DApps to implement algorithmic calculations that were previously too expensive or unable to be executed on the chain. , So as to create more attractive and competitive DApp products.
In addition, the “NFT Bridge” provided by Boba Network also allows NFTs to be efficiently and cost-effectively transferred on Boba, and can be transferred back to the Ethereum main chain at any time, thus ensuring that the security and decentralization of Ethereum are not compromised, and at the same time It also enables the current expensive NFT transfer transactions to be completed with lower transaction costs and faster confirmation time.
Simple comparison of Boba Network, Optimism, Arbitrum
Because in essence, Boba Network, Optimism, and Arbitrum are all expansion plans based on Optimistic Rollup , and their main features are basically the same. So here, we will make some horizontal comparisons around simple dimensions such as withdrawal cycle, transaction performance, and compatibility.
The first is in terms of the withdrawal cycle of funds. Since Optimistic Rollup is based on the game model of economic incentives, the time for the withdrawal of funds from Optimism and Arbitrum to the Ethereum main chain is basically about 1 week, while Boba Network uses the above mentioned The design based on the liquidity pool can achieve a minute-level withdrawal speed, but the actual safety of the product still needs to be further tested and observed.
The second is transaction performance. At present, Arbitrum and Optimism have specific DeFi header projects that can be used as a data-level reference-the transfer payment cost is about one-half of the Ethereum main network, and other more complex transaction needs are about Ethereum It ranges from one-tenth to one-tenth (for details, you can read ” How much cheaper are Arbitrum and Optimism than L1? “).
In terms of the compatibility of smart contracts, smart contracts on Ethereum can be easily migrated to Optimistic Rollup, so Optimism (OVM) is basically compatible with EVM, while Arbitrum is further fully compatible.
| Optimism | Arbitrum | Boba Network | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Withdrawal cycle | About a week | About a week | A few minutes |
| transaction cost | One-tenth of the main network | One-tenth of the main network | One-tenth of the main network |
| EVM compatible | Basically compatible | Fully compatible | Fully compatible |
| Throughput | Dozens of times | Dozens of times | Dozens of times |
| Whether the main network is online | Online | Online | Not online |
At the same time, in terms of ecology, after Arbitrum One was officially opened to the outside world, head DeFi projects such as Uniswap V3 and Aave have been launched successively, and the applications of wallets, cross-chain bridges and other tools are becoming more and more abundant, and Optimism is also It has long been supported by Uniswap V3 and Synthetix.
The Boba Network mainnet has not yet been officially launched. The current product data and plans have yet to be verified by the mainnet, and the ecology is relatively “barren” .
Roadmap and partners
Currently on the Boba testnet, ETH is used as the main cost token. According to official documents, the follow-up Boba mainnet will give priority to supporting OMG tokens as cost tokens. Boba’s long-term vision is to support as many fees as possible. Token.
In terms of ecological construction and partners, Boba Network’s currently disclosed partnerships include cooperation with DODO and Coin98, and the recent decentralized cross-chain transaction agreement Anyswap V3 has also been deployed on the Boba Network testnet, and will also be deployed in the future. The Boba Network mainnet was launched simultaneously.
summary
In the ever-changing blockchain industry, especially L2 expansion, where the focus of attention and innovation in the encryption field is the most concentrated, there is no unchanging leader. Once its own development strategy cannot keep up with the changes in the market, it is easy to be quickly abandoned by the market .
Similarly, once the strategic direction is quickly switched and the market’s most urgent pain point needs are re-occupied, it will quickly re-emerge. Therefore, the success story of the Matic Network brand upgrade to Polygon is quite exciting.
But in the final analysis, all this is not just a simple brand upgrade, behind it is more the repositioning of the development strategy and the gradual formation of the ecological scale.
At the moment, the L2 track has undoubtedly become one of the tracks that have received the most capital and market attention. At present, diversified expansion path options such as Rollup have also been born, and the competition between various products has become increasingly fierce. Among them, due to Optimistic Rollup is relatively friendly to smart contracts and other specific OP-Rollup products such as Optimism and Arbitrum have gradually formed their own prosperous ecology.
From this point of view, Boba Network, which was renamed from OMGX Network, is still in the very early stage of development-the main network has not yet been launched, the ecology is far from taking shape, everything has just begun, and it takes time to give answers.
