coindesk.com
The Optimism Foundation is proposing a new mechanism to tie the OP token more closely to the growth of its Superchain ecosystem, unveiling plans to use 50% of Superchain revenue to repurchase OP tokens.
Under the proposal, which is set to move to a governance vote on January 22, Optimism would initiate monthly buybacks starting in February, utilizing revenue generated from sequencer fees across chains built on the OP Stack. These include networks like Coinbase’s Base, Uniswap’s Unichain, World’s World Chain, Sony’s Soneium and other Superchain participants.
The news comes as the OP token is down nearly 54% over the past three months and 83% in the past year.
Optimism shared that it has collected 5,868 ETH in revenue from the Superchain, all of which has flowed into a token-governed treasury. The new proposal would redirect half of the incoming revenue toward purchasing OP tokens on the open market, with the acquired tokens then returned to the treasury. Those tokens could eventually be burned or distributed as staking rewards, depending on future governance decisions.
The move represents a shift that the team hopes will turn OP from a pure governance token toward one more explicitly linked to protocol revenue. The Foundation stated that the mechanism is designed to scale in tandem with Superchain's growth, aligning token holders with increasing activity across participating chains.
If approved, the remaining 50% of Superchain revenue would be managed directly by the Optimism Foundation, allowing for more active treasury management and ecosystem investment alongside existing staking programs.
“We think it will help connect the broader Superchain, beyond just OP Mainnet, to the token itself,” Bobby Dresser, the executive director of the Optimism Foundation, told CoinDesk in an interview. “We’re trying to make sure that folks understand the token’s role broader than just where Optimism started… it grows as the whole ecosystem grows.”
Read more: Optimism Taps Flashbots to Supercharge OP Stack Sequencing