The biggest change yet to Optimism brings more scalability and security to the Layer 2, as well as benefiting Perp users through lower gas fees and quicker confirmation times. This article covers everything you need to know ahead of the upgrade on June 6th.
Following the approval of the Token House delegates earlier this year in March, the highly anticipated Bedrock upgrade was set in motion. Bedrock will be activated on Tuesday, June 6th 2023 (starting at 16:00 UTC) as the first ever release of the OP Stack!
The downtime for the Optimism chain is expected to last for approximately 2-4 hours, where the upgrade is expected to be completed by 20:00 UTC. All transactions on the Optimism mainnet will be halted for the duration of the upgrade. Once complete, everything should be identical to how it was before the upgrade, including all balances, contract addresses, transaction data, block data, and historical execution traces.
Some of the key changes included in Bedrock are:
-
The target for block times becomes 2 seconds and multiple transactions can be included in a single rollup block. With the shift away from the ‘one transaction per block’ model, Optimism’s state growth is reduced by an estimated 15GB per year, making it less resource intensive to run a node.
-
Optimism moves closer to ‘Ethereum equivalence’, introducing EIP-1559 (although the parameters are different and ETH is not burned as it is on mainnet), support for chain re-organizations and other features from Layer 1 (L1).
-
Modularity: Bedrock enables support for multiple execution layer clients. Also, the proof system is abstracted, allowing a rollup to use either a fault proof or validity proof (i.e., zk-SNARKs) to prove correct execution of inputs on the rollup, paving the way for things like Cannon.
-
Enhanced node performance by removing technical debt from the protocol and an update to the software to more efficiently query for transaction data from L1.
To dive even deeper into the changes brought about by Bedrock, we recommend reading the following article and watching our in-depth explainer video:
https://community.optimism.io/docs/developers/bedrock/explainer/#
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecX5bXFyOdE
How Does the Bedrock Upgrade Affect Traders on Perp?
Users will be unable to interact with Perp’s DEX, tokenomics page and vaults for 30 minutes prior to and following the Bedrock upgrade (between 15:30-20:30 UTC on June 6th).
-
Starting June 6th at 15:30 UTC, Perp’s clearinghouse smart contract will be paused.
-
As a result, users cannot deposit or withdraw, add or remove liquidity, or open and close positions during the downtime. The pausing of the clearinghouse contract also means that liquidations will not occur for the duration of the upgrade.
-
Optimism’s sequencer will be wound down on June 6th at 16:00 UTC, so it will not be possible to bridge funds once the upgrade commences.
-
However, funding payments are still calculated for the duration of the upgrade and limit orders remain functional. Following the completion of Bedrock, the keeper bot will come back online, and any limit orders submitted during the downtime may be filled at that moment.
-
The Bedrock upgrade will initialize a new sequencer, so the bridging of funds will become available once the downtime has finished (expected between 18:00-20:00 UTC).
-
Within 30 minutes following the completion of Bedrock, the clearinghouse contract will be unpaused after Perp foundation team members examine the relevant data. As a result, trading on the Perp DEX and the arbitrage strategy run by the Hot Tub vaults will return to normal operations. Also, the vePERP locker contract and claiming of Lazy River rewards will become accessible once more.
FAQs
- Do I need to close my positions?
No, it’s not necessary to close any existing positions, although you are free to close your positions prior to the upgrade before 15:30 UTC on June 6th. During the upgrade process, Perp’s clearinghouse smart contract will be paused, preventing any trading activity and liquidations for the entire duration of Optimism’s downtime. Since the network will not be operational between 16:00 and 20:00 UTC, liquidations are not possible.
Margin requirements and liquidations on Perp are based on the mark price. If there’s a large deviation between the index price and market price following a successful Bedrock upgrade, the mark price will be determined by the market price. As a result, there’s no risk of sudden liquidations when the Optimism chain comes back online.
- How can I prepare for the upgrade?
Traders should ensure their account is healthy (meaning it’s leveraged less than 2x-3x) prior to the upgrade. If you have existing positions and your account’s margin ratio is lower than 50%, it is recommended to deposit more collateral before June 6th 15:30 UTC (or close out all of your positions before this time).
Foundation team members will be on duty to monitor the progress of the upgrade and assist any users just in case anything unexpected happens.
- How will I know when the upgrade is complete?
Check Optimism’s official status page here or turn on notifications for Optimism’s official Twitter account.
We’ll also post updates on Discord, Telegram and Twitter to inform users that Bedrock has been activated. Another update will also be posted to let our users know that trading on Perp has resumed.
- Will I notice any changes after the Bedrock upgrade?
While remaining mostly the same following the Bedrock upgrade, there are some improvements to the user experience that may be noticeable:
-
Lower transaction costs: Bedrock improves data compression and removes all L1 execution gas to achieve the minimum theoretically possible L1 data costs. Gas fees are expected to decrease by around 10% as compared to the previous version of Optimism.
-
Shorter waiting times when bridging funds to Optimism from mainnet: the time users must wait when depositing to Optimism will be reduced thanks to the introduction of support for L1 re-organizations in the node software. Deposits will be expected to finalize within 3 minutes, down from the previous 10 minutes.
-
Enhanced security for withdrawals from the Optimism chain: a two-step withdrawal process is introduced to minimize the occurrence of withdrawal proof validation bugs, which substantially reduces the risk of a bridge being compromised.
As a complete rewrite of the entire rollup stack, Bedrock is the most important update yet for Optimism’s mainnet. Bedrock paves the way for further, exciting updates such as the next-gen fault proof system Cannon and the Superchain (a network of L2 chains).
If you have questions about Bedrock or want to discuss anything Optimism related, talk to us on Discord or Telegram!