The Optimism network lets you send transactions, similar to Ethereum, but with two important advantages, and one feature that stays exactly the same.
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Near-instant transaction finality. You know almost immediately if your transaction took place or not.
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Much lower transaction fees. Typically between a 1% and 10% of the cost on the Ethereum mainnet (also known as layer 1 or L1). For the current gas price and a few sample transactions' costs see here.
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Decentralization: All transactions are posted to L1 Ethereum, inheriting the strong security guarantees of Ethereum.