Optimism | Crypto

The appointments add traditional finance and institutional crypto experience as the layer-1 blockchain scales its post-launch strategy. The Monad Foundation has hired three senior executives from Optimism, FalconX and BVNK as it expands its focus on institutional adoption following its November mainnet launch. Urvit Goel joins as vice president of go-to-market from the Optimism Foundation, Joanita Titan becomes head of institutional growth after leading custody and staking at FalconX, and Sagar Sarbhai joins as head of institutions for Asia-Pacific, most recently at BVNK. The three executives previously held roles at JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Anchorage Digital, Fireblocks and Amazon, bringing backgrounds in traditional finance and institutional crypto infrastructure. Read more

Base’s Jesse Pollak says L2s can’t be “Ethereum but cheaper” as builders respond to Vitalik Buterin’s call for specialization. Several layer-2 builders responded after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the original vision of L2s as the primary scaling engine “no longer makes sense,” calling for a shift toward specialization. In a Wednesday post, Buterin argued that many L2s have failed to fully inherit Ethereum’s security due to continued reliance on multisig bridges, while the base layer is increasingly capable of handling more throughput via gas-limit increases and future native rollups. The comments prompted responses from Ethereum layer 2s, who broadly agreed that rollups must evolve beyond being cheaper versions of Ethereum but diverged on whether scaling should remain central to their role. Read more

Under the proposal, which is set to move to a governance vote on January 22, Optimism would begin monthly buybacks starting in February.

Optimism has posted double-digit weekly gains while maintaining a market cap just half of Aptos and far below meme coins. Analysts argue the valuation overlooks nearly 300 DeFi protocols and the $4.6 billion Superchain, which now drives activity on Base, Zora and Worldchain. The post Aave, Uniswap Bet on Optimism – Why Traders Ignore the L2’s $4.6B Ecosystem appeared first on Cryptonews.