Thread by @jillrgunter

If you are an app developer or working on a rollup, you’ve probably considered the technical implications of launching an Arbitrum Orbit vs an OP Superchain

But have you considered the business implications?

I see OP get a lot of kudos for having such an open model — and in terms of strict licensing considerations, they are the best in the business. Everything is fully free for anyone to use under MIT.

Arbitrum took a different approach to licensing, though you can permissionlessly launch an L3 Orbit chain that settles to the Arb L2.

Today you would have to deal with a more restrictive business license to launch your own L2.

I don’t have any of the inside baseball on this but I’m guessing that this was a big consideration for a major player like Base to go to OP who (even just for optics, but also for reasons like lock-in) would never launch an L3.

But OP isn’t in the business of just giving away their software, their user base, etc!

You CAN fork the OP Stack and build anything — but in practice most chains build on the Superchain and opt into the Law of Chains.

This may sound all very Web3 but it’s basically a commercial agreement governed and enforced by a DAO.

To be clear! I think both are reasonable and great models!

You WANT there to be agreements and standards like these! You WANT these ecosystems to have incentive-alignment with the teams building on them. None of this is criticism.

I also think that Arbitrum licensing & OP Law of Chains have very similar values & goals — both are trying to engender as much innovation and free, open use of their platforms as they can

While still having some way to enforce standards in their ecosystems & capture value.

I also think both approaches have their benefits and challenges.

Arbitrum licensing may make it harder to take what you’ve built elsewhere or onto your own stack in future. But also feels more “what you see is what you get”. I don’t think there are a lot of big bespoke deals happening. This may make it a safer bet for the average chain.

OP Law of Chains on the other hand is more open and forkable.

But if I were building an app I wouldn’t feel quite sure of where I stand in terms of my business model. Is the Optimism Collective going to want its pound of flesh if I become super successful?

We know the details of the deal that Base did with OP.

Again, I think this is a great model and makes sense.

But you have to be a certain type of project (large enough scale, enough clout) for it to make sense from either the OP side or your own to engage in this kind of deal.

Part of what I love so much about crypto is that we see these new business models develop and run experiments in real time.

The differing business models of Arbitrum vs OP is one of the most fascinating case studies to me.

Both have their merits and risks.

I’m not in the business of judging that.

I’m just in the business of making sure neither becomes a walled garden because

Infinite Gardens Have No Walls.

/ fin.

PS - open invitation to my Arb and OP homies to correct me where I’m wrong in this thread TYSM always learning

Important clarification! (TIL)

https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1848503779148046398