, and
the network will become a standard Ethereum Rollup
.
Immutable will also join the Optimism Superchain interoperability network.
What Changes for Users and Developers
Immutable says the migration should be largely invisible to users. Accounts, balances and contracts will carry over automatically, and almost no one will need to act.
Existing Chain IDs, user addresses, token balances, smart contract logic and on-chain authorization records are to be preserved.
There are trade-offs. Transaction fees will rise slightly, and block production will pause for a few hours on switch day.
Immutable says transactions will get slightly more expensive, and notes that gas on the chain is extremely cheap at present.
The company says it will announce the date well ahead of time once it is confirmed.
The upgrade also changes how assets move between chains.
Immutable Chain’s native bridge currently runs on Axelar, an external cross-chain messaging network.
That relay setup will be replaced with Ethereum-native state commitments.
Immutable expects most bridging volume to keep going through faster liquidity bridges.
Security Model and Maintenance
At launch, Immutable will use permissioned fault proofs, with zk-validity proofs to follow later.
The company says the OP Stack will also let it pick up protocol upgrades, EVM upgrades and security patches faster.
Running on a shared framework should reduce the work of maintaining a bespoke client.
Before the OP Stack, launching a layer-2 network meant forking Optimism’s monolithic node software and maintaining a divergent codebase indefinitely, whereas the OP Stack splits each function into a module with a published interface.
Immutable’s chain has so far processed almost 250 million transactions across more than 18 million wallets, according to the company. The move adds to Optimism’s growing roster of OP Stack networks.
The OP Stack is the open-source framework that powers OP Mainnet and dozens of other chains.
Immutable has previously consolidated its infrastructure.
It merged Immutable X and Immutable zkEVM into a single Immutable chain
, and the OP Stack move is the next step in that simplification.
Sources
EGamers: Immutable Chain Will Become an OP Stack Rollup on Ethereum
TechFlow: Immutable Announces Transition to Ethereum Rollup
Eco: What Is the OP Stack? Architecture and Superchain Explained