Optimism Is Done With “Ethereum Alignment” — Users Come First

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo sits down with Jing Wang to discuss how Optimism is evolving and why the debate over what counts as a “real” Ethereum L2 might be missing the point.
Jing argues that the most important question isn’t whether a chain is an L1, L2, or sidechain.
It’s whether the architecture actually serves users and real-world use cases.
“If it looks like an L1, we’ll build that. If it looks like an L2, we’ll build that.”
In the conversation we cover:

• Why Optimism now sees itself as a network of blockchains (the Superchain)
• The debate around Ethereum L2 decentralization sparked by Vitalik Buterin
• Why institutions are already using decentralized rails
• Why ZK proofs are the future
• And why Jing believes finance inevitably moves on-chain
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