The Optimism Basis has floated a significant shakeup to the dynamics of the layer 2’s OP token, proposing to allocate 50% of its Superchain income to common buybacks of the asset.
Optimism Grants council member Michael Vander Meiden shared the proposal through X on Thursday, highlighting that “after a few years of being a ‘ineffective gov token’ the worth of the OP token will lastly be tied to community exercise.”
The proposal was initially submitted within the Optimism governance discussion board on Wednesday. It outlines a plan to direct 50% of incoming Superchain income to month-to-month Optimism (OP) buybacks that may move again into the token treasury.
“These tokens can then be burned or distributed as staking rewards because the platform evolves. Governance will retain oversight over parameters that management the buyback and the token treasury,” the Optimism Basis stated.
Optimism needs to develop OP utility past governance
The transfer is a part of a push to broaden OP utility past primarily governance into one thing that’s “tightly aligned with the expansion of the Superchain,” and will present a significant enhance to OP holders and builders throughout the ecosystem.
“Because the Superchain evolves, the token could tackle further performance aligned with the community’s long-term decentralization and resilience, together with roles in securing shared infrastructure, coordinating sequencer rotation, and enabling collective governance over core protocol features,” the Optimism Basis stated.
Associated: Ethereum is the Linux of blockchain, says co-founder Vitalik Buterin
The proposal outlined the significance of relativizing OP to mirror the expansion of Optimism from being an “experiment” in Ethereum scaling to an ecosystem internet hosting a big quantity of complete layer 2 exercise.
“The Superchain captured 61.4% L2 charge market share and processes 13% of all crypto transactions, and that share continues to rise. The OP token ought to be aligned with that momentum and development,” the workforce stated.
Optimism’s Superchain was launched again in February 2023 and consists of a community of layer-2 (L2) chains constructed with the mission’s open-source OP stack. The ecosystem hosts chains akin to Unichain, Ink and Coinbase’s L2 Base.
The OP token had a tricky 2025, with its worth declining by almost 83%. The value has but to bounce this week on the information of the proposal.
Journal: China’s Ethereum’ in civil conflict, Japan to embrace Bitcoin ETFs: Asia Categorical
