Optimism's Ethereum-based scaling solution has soft launched on mainnet

Optimism has launched its Layer 2 scaling solution, the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM) on the L2 Optimistic Ethereum (OΞ) mainnet, Synthetix announced Friday. 

The first trial run is with decentralized exchange protocol Synthetix, which is now live on the OΞ mainnet. This means holders can now stake the protocol's native token, SNX. 

According to the announcement, OΞ is the first scaling solution with "full cross-layer porting capabilities for smart contracts without rewriting them," meaning Synthetix will not have to change its code to get its smart contracts onto OVM. 

Prior to the release, the team behind Optimism said the mainnet release could result in outages and bugs. Thus, the team will hold the upgrade keys for the first six months in an effort to secure user funds. 

A public testnet is set to be released on March 15.