The Delta hardfork, deployed across Optimism-based chains like Optimism Mainnet, Zora and Base last week, has successfully reduced fees as anticipated.
This update focused on minimizing layer-1 fees incurred by chain operators. Initial projections suggested significant reductions, and Zora data indeed shows a 90% decrease in fixed overhead costs after the upgrade. This translates to increased revenue for Zora, highlighting the potential benefits of the Delta fork.
"We expect this upgrade to significantly ease adoption of the OP Stack by reducing the fee burden for all chain operators," stated OP Labs.
A key element of the Delta upgrade, "Span Batches," consolidates multiple layer-2 blocks into one single batch for transmission to the Ethereum mainnet. This reduces the amount of data requiring transfer, consequently lowering fees. Pre-implementation estimates projected a fee decrease of 6-11% for active chains and over 90% for less active ones, and these estimates appear to have been accurate.
Optimism, which utilizes optimistic rollups to achieve lower transaction costs for decentralized applications (dApps), operates as a network of layer-2 chains known collectively as the Superchain. This ecosystem is governed by the Optimism Collective, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).