OptimismPortal
is the low-level L1 message passing contract present on all standard OP Stack chains.
This contract handles the L1 side of the communication channel between an OP Stack chain and its L1 parent chain.
As a safety mechanism, a privileged GUARDIAN
address can pause withdrawals.
When paused, the OptimismPortal
contract will prevent L2-to-L1 transactions from being executed.
This is a backup safety mechanism that can be used to help mitigate potential active security concerns.
Pause functionality were introduced to the OP Stack to mitigate the risk of withdrawal bugs that have led to exploits in other bridging systems.
Pause functionality
TheOptimismPortal
points to a SuperchainConfig
smart contract which has a privileged GUARDIAN
address that can pause and unpause L2-to-L1 transactions from being executed.
The SuperchainConfig
contract is a shared implementation across the Superchain. All Optimism-governed chains point to it, and any OP Stack chain can point its SuperchainConfigProxy
to this shared implementation.
L2-to-L1 transactions allow users and smart contracts on the OP Stack chain to send messages to the L1 parent chain.
Pause functionality allows a GUARDIAN
to halt L2-to-L1 transaction execution for the OP Stack chain in question.
L1-to-L2 transactions are not affected by pause functionality.
Pauses by the GUARDIAN
impact all L2-to-L1 transactions for the OP Stack chain in question and cannot be targeted to specific users, smart contracts, or transactions.
Pauses are designed to be a backup safety mechanism and are expected to be used only in the event of an active pressing security concern.
Pause and unpause functions
TheGUARDIAN
can pause and unpause L2-to-L1 transactions at any time by calling the pause
and unpause
functions on the SuperchainConfig
contract.
Guardian address
TheGUARDIAN
address is configured in the SuperchainConfig
contract and can be modified by the network’s administrative address or smart contract. To learn more about the privileged role, see documentation.
The GUARDIAN
address is set as an immutable
variable inside of the SuperchainConfig
contract.
To change the GUARDIAN
address, the SuperchainConfig
proxy contract must be upgraded to a new implementation contract that has a different GUARDIAN
address.