Whitechain, the blockchain of W Group and sister to the WhiteBIT exchange, is moving from a standalone Layer 1 to an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the OP Stack with @Optimism. The developer mainnet went live on Monday, and the public launch is planned for later in November.

The chain's balances, contracts and addresses carry over unchanged, and $WBT remains the gas token. According to Optimism's announcement, Whitechain runs its own chain under OP Enterprise Self-Managed, with Mission Critical support from the Optimism Foundation and technical support from its subcontractor, OP Labs.

What Changes and What Stays the Same

@Whitechain_io was previously a proof-of-authority Layer 1 operated by WhiteBIT.

Under the new design, the OP Stack sequencer is operated by WhiteBIT at launch, and gas is paid in WBT under EIP-1559 with OP Stack parameters.
The migration copies balances to the wei.

Optimism says that under the self-managed model,

Whitechain operates its own chain, keeps control of its configuration, and will coordinate its public repositories and configuration files.

The OP Stack is open-source and MIT-licensed, and Optimism notes that Whitechain joins a growing group of exchange-backed chains building on it.

Whitechain's documentation states that the network is

settled on Ethereum via blob data availability, with WBT (WhiteBIT Coin) as the native gas token.
The project says WBT stays the same token with the same supply after the move.
After mainnet launch, WhiteBIT users are due to withdraw WBT directly to Whitechain L2 from the exchange interface, with no third-party bridge.

Background to the Migration

The move was first announced in August.

Whitechain said it would relaunch as a distribution-focused Ethereum L2 network on the OP Stack, as part of W Group, which also includes the WhiteBIT exchange.
A public testnet has been reachable since August 18, 2026.

Optimism says W Group serves

more than 40 million customers globally across WhiteBIT, Whitepay, white.market and Whitewallet.

In its migration documentation, Whitechain notes that

the OP Stack is also the base for Base, Optimism and the wider Superchain, giving it shared tooling and a path toward decentralized sequencing.

The public mainnet launch will be the first test of how the new infrastructure performs with real users and applications.

Sources