Uniswap Optimism Protocol Delegation Committee Update

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Hi Uniswap Community!

Recently, the UF received a delegation on behalf of the Uniswap Community/DAO and elected a council to participate in governance. As a quick intro into the committee’s current process:

  1. Conduct diligence and form a unified position
  2. Attend all community events
  3. Work collaboratively to document the voting position
  4. Post on the Uniswap forum and monitor discussion for 3-5 days for any questions
  5. Vote & communicate the position on the OP forum

The Uniswap Foundation is focused on supporting projects and proposals that embody the core ethos of Uniswap and the overall Ethereum ecosystem, including the ideals of decentralization, security, and permissionless access. With these values in mind and focusing on building a world where anyone can access financial services without fear of discrimination or counterparty risk, we assess proposals based on various factors, including but not limited to ecosystem impact, decentralization of a project, and stakeholder impact.

Index

  1. Summary of the proposal
  2. Benefits of the proposal
  3. Risks of the proposal
  4. Current voting position

Summary

This upgrade thoroughly updates Optimism architecture’s core components, providing a more modular, straightforward, and Ethereum-compatible experience for Layer 2 solutions. Bedrock is designed with a modular architecture, dividing the OP Stack into three parts: consensus, execution, and settlement. The upgrade introduces a two-phase withdrawal process for heightened bridge security, and a community security contest is currently underway to uncover potential vulnerabilities.

Bedrock upgrade promises improved performance across the board, such as reduced transaction costs, faster throughput, and quicker sync speeds. The upgrade process is estimated to take less than four hours, and historic chain data will still be available after the upgrade. The Optimism Foundation has been in close communication with major partners. It has provided various resources to assist them, including guides tailored to different personas, a guide for node operators, and a general FAQ page.

One of the most notable improvements in Bedrock is the reduction of transaction fees. This was achieved by implementing an optimized data compression strategy and removing gas costs associated with EVM execution. As a result, fees are expected to be significantly reduced, making the platform more accessible to users.

Another important improvement in Bedrock is the reduction in deposit times. The node software now supports L1 re-org, significantly reducing the time users wait for their deposits to be confirmed. This is a big improvement over the previous version of the protocol, where deposits could take up to 10 minutes to confirm. With Bedrock, deposits are expected to be confirmed within just 3 minutes.

The node performance in Bedrock has also been significantly improved. The software now reduces state growth and enhances efficiency through upgrades. Additionally, technical debt has been removed from the previous version of the protocol, which further improves the node’s performance.

Finally, Bedrock was designed to be as close to Ethereum as possible. This includes the removal of deviations from Ethereum in the previous version of the protocol and adding support for features present on L1, such as EIP-1559 and chain reorgs. With its modular and upgradeable design, Bedrock sets the stage for future developments in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Proposal Key Benefits:

  1. Modularity: Bedrock offers a new level of modularity in the Optimism architecture, separating the core components into three parts: consensus, execution, and settlement.

  2. Performance improvements: The upgrade improves transaction costs, throughput characteristics, and sync speeds.

  3. Ethereum equivalence: The upgrade provides a new level of Ethereum equivalence for Layer 2 solutions, making it easier for developers to work with the Optimism platform.

General Risks

There are general risks identified for the upgrade that includes:

  1. Implementation risk
  2. Potential Impact on Uniswap Protocol users
  3. Future unidentified risks

Uniswap Risks

While the general risks identified are broad, the appropriate parties have taken adequate risk mitigation measures. Examples of this include &+ audits of the codebase and Sherlock hackathons with >100 participants. Moreso, the team at OP labs is well-equipped to identify and course-correct any unidentified issues. Prior to the first vote, the core team found significant bugs that were handled by the development team; the Bedrock vote was then moved to 3/23 and is ongoing for two weeks.

The V2 proposal addresses some concerns regarding the downtime and states that the upgrade will not require data regenesis of historical on-chain data (reset); protocols operating on the OP platform should be minimally impacted.

While there were community questions about handling the 4-hour sequencer downtime, notably from L2Beat found here, Proposal V2 highlights the statement below:

The Bedrock migration will require pausing deposits and sequencer transaction ingestion during the upgrade, effectively resulting in network downtime. We estimate that this will take <4 hours. Unlike previous upgrades to Optimism, this release will not require a “regenesis,” and historic chain data will still be accessible after the upgrade. As such, little action is required from end-users of Optimism other than being aware of that timing.

While the upgrade strictly improves on EVM equivalence, some application developers may be affected. While we have been in active touch with major partners, the developer community has also been actively notified over the past few months in 1:many communications. We maintain the following documentation pages for impacted…

Position

The role of this committee is to analyze the governance proposal and determine a voting proposal from the view of the Uniswap community. This proposal has had significant effects from a security standpoint and outlines various benefits for the protocol’s future. Some benefits include modularity, efficiency, and the support of future-proof systems. We believe it is beneficial for Uniswap to support the bedrock upgrade proposal.

Sources:

Proposal

Guides

Additional Information

H/T @honn24x , @fengcc, @StrategicReserve, @DAOstrat.C , @thisisthetruth , @GuzMassAdoption, @BP333

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