- Optimism has announced a partnership with Upbit for the GIWA Chain infrastructure.
- GIWA Chain will operate on the Self-Managed tier of OP Enterprise.
Optimism has announced a collaboration with Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit. The partnership will see Upbit build the GIWA Chain, its own blockchain infrastructure, with the support of Optimism Foundation.
Built on the OP Stack, the chain will be the first on the Self-Managed tier of OP Enterprise.
Optimism Foundation reveals that exchanges are increasingly choosing to build and launch their own blockchain infrastructure as opposed to a shared infrastructure. As exchanges grow bigger, they are seeking greater control over ordering rules, transaction fees, and guarantees on the Service Level Agreement (SLA) that their regulators require.
The trend of exchanges building their own blockchains has already been validated through Coinbase’s Base network and Kraken’s Ink network.
Why Upbit Chose Optimism to Build
With more than 13 million customers, Upbit is seeking to have greater control over its blockchain infrastructure. Upbit acknowledged that Optimism’s OP Stack has become the standard for exchanges launching their own chains. OP Stack offers a clear track record, tooling, ecosystem, and reliability that a regulated operator requires.
The exchanges’ COO explained:
“Operating our own GIWA Chain is a strategic move for Upbit. Our goal is to provide institutional and retail users with a level of performance and compliance consistent with our existing platform…”
With 32 Layer 2 networks running in production on the OP Stack and six billion transactions in 2025, the network has emerged as a top choice for launching production-quality blockchain. Furthermore, the exchange will enjoy extensive resources and support from the Optimism Foundation.
Jing Wang, Director at The Optimism Foundation, noted:
“What we hear consistently from the largest exchanges and institutional operators is that they want to own the chain their users transact on, not rent it. Upbit going live on OP Enterprise Self-Managed is a clear signal about where the industry is moving. It also says something about where the trust is going: an operator at Upbit’s scale isn’t going to build on infrastructure that hasn’t already proven it can carry the weight.”
Already in testnet, the two teams are looking forward to architecture reviews, performance benchmarking, and security audits before the mainnet launch.
The Optimism Foundation now believes that this is the first of many exchanges that will be looking to deploy on their blockchain network.
Although the announcement is a big win for the Optimism network, it had little effect on prices. Optimism’s OP token has rallied 1% over the past 24 hours, extending its weekly gains by nearly 4%. At the time of writing, OP is trading for $0.1263, nearly 98% below its all-time high.
