For all its idealism, the design process behind Optimism is ultimately driven by pragmatism. The core Optimism team has real-world constraints, the projects that build on Optimism have real-world needs, and the users that engage with Optimism have real-world problems. Optimism's design philosophy prioritizes user and developer need over theoretical perfection. Sometimes the best solution isn't the prettiest one.

Optimism is in it for the long haul. Application developers need assurance that the platform they're building on will remain operational and competitive over long periods. Optimism's design process is built around long-term sustainability and not taking shortcuts to scalability. A scalable system means nothing without the ecosystem that sustains it.

Of course, none of this would be possible without a sense of optimism. Our optimism about the Ethereum vision keeps this project moving forward. We believe in an optimistic future for Ethereum, where we get to redesign our relationships with the institutions that coordinate our lives.

Optimism is an “Optimistic Rollup,” which is a fancy way of describing a blockchain that piggy-backs off of the security of another “parent” blockchain. Specifically, Optimistic Rollups take advantage of their parent chain's consensus mechanism (like PoW or PoS) instead of providing their own. In Optimism's case, this parent blockchain is Ethereum.