Optimism Proposes 50% OP Token Buybacks Starting February

The Optimism Foundation rolled out a new governance proposal to enable OP OP $0.32 24h volatility: 0.1% Market cap: $619.16 M Vol. 24h: $72.25 M buybacks from 50% of the Superchain’s revenue. This proposal will be voted on January 22, aiming to start the buybacks in February, if approved.

According to the official blog post published on January 8—following up on the proposal published a day before, January 7, in Optimism’s governance forum—it explains that “Optimism earns revenue from the Superchain.”

Superchain is “a network of L2 chains built on the OP Stack that includes Base, Unichain, Ink, World Chain, Soneium, OP Mainnet, and more. These chains all contribute a portion of their sequencer revenue back to Optimism,” the foundation wrote.

Over the past 12 months, this revenue-sharing mechanism added up to 5,868 ETH ETH $3 108 24h volatility: 0.4% Market cap: $375.12 B Vol. 24h: $20.35 B to an Optimism governance-controlled treasury. Under the proposed plan, 50% of future revenue would fund monthly OP purchases starting in February if the vote passes on January 22. Bought tokens would head to the treasury, where governance could later burn them or use them for staking rewards.

The foundation described the change as a shift for OP, the token, moving from mainly a governance tool to one that benefits from Superchain expansion. Every new chain or transaction boosts the revenue base for buybacks, benefiting OP holders and investors.

Notably, the remaining 50% of ETH would stay under foundation management, with more flexibility for yield generation or ecosystem investments, still subject to governance oversight, per the proposal and blog post.

Community Feedback and Crypto Buybacks

Community feedback on X showed support for the alignment idea. OP Labs CEO Mark Boas, who goes by Optimist Prime on X, noted it as a starting point that scales with growth. Boas highlighted Superchain’s current state processing “13% of all blockchain transactions, with 61.4% of L2 fee market share.”

However, he pointed out the fact that the token, OP, “has historically had no tie to the performance of the Superchain,” saying they would like to change that with this new proposal.

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Happy new year everyone! In November last year, I wrote about the changes we were making to refocus the team on what comes next for crypto.

Today, the @Optimism Foundation is proposing a token buyback. The goal is to unify the broader ecosystem outside of just our internal…

— Optimist Prime (@jinglejamOP) January 8, 2026

Cronos Labs CEO Ryan Wyatt commented on Optimism Foundation’s official post announcing the proposal. Wyatt called it positive but suggested addressing remaining token unlocks and suggested, “as an OP holder” for the governance to “make commitments to re-locking or burning some of these allocations:” governance fund remaining (113.46 million OP), user airdrops remaining (546.93 million OP), retro fund remaining (777.59 million OP), and partner & seed fund remaining (247.33 million OP).

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Fantastic step in the right direction to tie value to OP through the Superchain. But, at ~$15M projected 2026 revenue for OP based on '2025 forecast, 50% of that is $7.5M in buybacks. You are talking about only 15M–25M OP if we assume a $.30-.51c range.

As an $OP holder, I'd…

— Ryan Wyatt (@Fwiz) January 8, 2026

Optimism’s movements fit a pattern seen in other protocols adjusting token economics for alignment. In November 2025, the dydx community approved directing 75% of protocol fees to DYDX buybacks, as Coinspeaker reported. This followed other projects like ether.fi with a $50 million ETHFI buyback proposal from October 2025.

Interestingly, Optimism is in a privileged position thanks to Superchain’s results, as Mark Boas highlighted while OP ranked among 2025’s worst-performing major tokens, as detailed in Coinspeaker’s year-end review, evidencing a clear divergence between the network and its underlying asset.

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