DeversiFi has worked with Opera, a Web 3 browser with 380 million users, and our own scalability partner StarkWare to create a mobile wallet specifically for layer 2 Ethereum.
The new wallet will enable millions of Opera users to swap coins and tokens without ever touching the main Ethereum blockchain. Transactions will occur instantly, at a fraction of the cost of layer 1.
To celebrate the launch, we held a TwitterSpace with Sebastian Andersson, product market manager at Opera and Liron Hayman, product and ecosystem expert at StarkWare, to discuss the possibilities of the browser. Here are the highlights of our conversation.
Gas costs will down from 21,000 to 200
Sebastian: ‘A typical asset transfer on Ethereum costs 21,000 gas now. Although the U.S. dollar value depends on the Ethereum price at the time, and the demand for block space [on the main blockchain] you’re looking at roughly USD$40-50 today.
‘But on layer 2, with StarkEx [StarkWare’s scalability solution], that 21,000 gas goes down to roughly 200. You’re looking at a roughly 100 times decrease in gas cost. When I calculated it before the call, that’s around USD$0.09 based on current prices.
‘What’s more, with StarkEx, the more transactions you fit in, the cheaper the cost per transaction. As more and more decentralised apps run on top of us and send more and more transactions through, that $0.09 will go down.’
StarkWare solves the Ethereum struggle – we can submit 10,000 transactions in a single proof
Liron: ‘Ethereum is built with this big struggle. As a peer-to-peer network, it has limited space and frequency for transactions, which then makes the demand for that space go up.
‘So transaction fees are just too expensive and without layer 2, it’s getting even more expensive as more users come into the network.
‘That’s a huge problem. When you talk about democratisation, globalisation of Ethereum and all the power that you have with web 3 and self-custody, you have to keep transaction costs down.
‘With StarkWare, we execute transactions on the StarkWare layer [which sits on top of the trading platform] and then put them into a proof that we generate.
‘The magic with this proof is that if you have, say, 10,000 transactions in the proof, you no longer need to submit 10,000 individual transactions to Ethereum. Instead, you can submit 1 proof, which contains these 10,000 transactions.
‘Ethereum just needs to verify this proof and verification of this proof. Instead of taking 10,000 steps, it only needs a few hundred.
‘So you’re getting this great scalability and cheap costs. [Because Ethereum submits transactions in bulk], the transaction costs go down with more usage of the network.’
This isn’t DeFi or CeFi… it’s fi, full stop
Liron: ‘Imagine you’ve got $10 you want to send overseas. You’re in America, your friend’s in Australia and you’re both contributing a small amount to a present.
‘In the legacy system, there’s no way to send those dollars at low cost. But if you’ve both got Opera wallets, you just click to transfer to their wallet and you’re good to.
‘Ignore DeFi, CeFi or whatever… that’s fi. We’re solving real-world problems and big painpoints for end users.’
We want to democratise blockchains for everyone in the world
Sebastian: ‘I’m in Africa right now and Opera has brand equity in many, many markets around the world. It’s a household name and it’s really [in developing markets] where these use cases are most relevant.
‘Look at remittance corridors. That’s one of the reasons why Nigeria, for example, is one of the biggest crypto crypto markets in the world. The sort of predatory banking that existed in traditional finance is something that we can solve so easily now, in so many exciting ways.
‘With decentralised systems, the profits that would previously be taken by a central authority can now be distributed in really interesting ways, and people are gamifying that: they’re building ways to create savings that are gamified, like lotteries.
‘I think those are such exciting prospects because they open the door for really, really unique ways for people to view finance, and often in the unbanked parts of the world that’s viewing finance for the very first time.
‘Our ultimate goal is to really democratise what the blockchain gives to everybody in the world, even those outside of the crypto Twitter sphere right now.
‘Our main engineering work right now is building out the StarkNet chain, which is an open permissionless blockchain where anybody can go and deploy a smart contract or an app there, and interact with it without needing to go through a business partnership with us.
‘This is currently in the Ethereum mainnet in its alpha version, so you can test it out if you want to.’
The Android version of the browser is out now – Apple coming soon
Sebastian: ‘The iOS version is well on the way and we are expecting it to drop in the next month or so. So hold tight for that.
‘With all of our products we make sure to release only when we’re happy internally so as soon as that that that reaches maturity, it’s going to be in the public domain.’
‘We’re chain-agnostic and we’re working with Solana and Polygon’
Sebastian: ‘Working with DeversiFi and layer 2 within Opera for Android has been huge for us and that technology will very soon make its way into the crypto browser.
‘Then we’re working with our other partners, so Solana, Polygon and their ecosystems, to make sure that we have really great Dapps and services that are supported in our browser, for our users to use straight out of the box.
‘Our plan is very chain-agnostic. We seek to create the largest level of compatibility across the broadest level of ecosystems and are working across a number of layer one partners.
‘But the cost problem within Ethereum is particularly important to us. That’s why, the StarkWare DeversiFi approach is so exciting, because it really does provide that that scalability.
‘Our goal always is utility first, and creating a safe and reliable platform that anyone in crypto can jump straight into.’
Ready to try the new browser?
If you want to try the new Opera browser, powered by DeversiFi and StarkWare, Just click the button below
