I remember watching a talk by Gavin Wood from ~2018, where he compared Polkadot to NATO and argued that the most efficient design for chains involved sharing security. Parachains, as he called them, would all pay into a common pot. Through governance these funds would be used to develop infra that benefitted the whole ecosystem

Fast forward to 2024, and this system exists — it’s called the OP Stack. What OP got that Polkadot did not, is that you needed demand before you could create the most efficient system

Optimism started out as a group of Plasma researchers responding to Crypto Kitties. First they had to launch as an isolated chain inheriting Eth’s security, then came the chain SDK, and now interoperability and fee pooling via governance. Just like Gav imagined :)

Only by satisfying the immediate customers in front of them could they effectively grow and build out the next successive stage of the system

Always amusing how onchain systems not only mirror the real world, but also each other!

great analogy except US contributes 22% of NATO's total budget and 70% of the defense budget.

Spaz Chad | Good Detective | (@kia.eth’s roomate)