Ethereum Layer-2 Network Optimism Initiates Token Airdrop
The first wave, or Airdrop #1, was only available to a select few, however. These included early Optimism users, DAO voters, multi-signature signers, Gitcoin donors, and active users of decentralized apps on Ethereum critical to ecosystem growth.
Not Smooth Sailing
As expected, demand was overwhelming, and the team described it as a turbulent launch, which it managed to stabilize after more than five hours of non-stop work.
Once the smart contract was opened for claims, there was no way to stop it. Our biggest mistake here was failing to make this contract pausable, the team added. The claims user interface (UI) was overwhelmed and was shut down, resulting in users creating their own sharing links. The team stated:
We became concerned that scammers might use custom UIs to phish funds from Optimism users and made the decision to (quietly) re-deploy the primary UI.
Wow, what a day.
OP Drop #1 had a turbulent launch which we finally stabilized after more than five hours of non-stop work.
Well be publishing a full, detailed retrospective on the lessons learned next week. Lets quickly talk about what happened.
Optimism (_) (@optimismPBC) June 1, 2022
As a result of the overloaded UI, many of those eligible could not claim their airdrops. Optimism is planning Airdrop #2, where it hopes it can alleviate some of these problems from lessons learned in the first attempt.
Optimism is a layer-two Ethereum scaling solutions provider that uses optimistic rollup technology, which alters the consensus principle by assuming data submitted to the chain is correct and allowing a challenge period. This speeds up transactions and lowers their cost on layer-one Ethereum (ETH).
The Optimism DAO initiative called the Optimism Collective is split into two components focused on public goods, software upgrades, and protocol incentive structures.
The next major airdrop is likely to come from the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask which has already confirmed that a token is in the pipeline. However, if there were problems with Optimisms handful of eligible recipients, MetaMask will need to up its game to airdrop to a potential user base of around 30 million.
