Watch Out: Hundreds of Millions of New Tokens Will Enter Circulation in an Altcoin

The Optimism Foundation has announced its budget outlook for its fifth year of operation, covering the period from May 2026 to April 2027. According to the foundation’s estimates, approximately 343 million OP tokens will enter circulation during this period.

The shared projection indicates that 200 million OP of the tokens expected to enter circulation will come from the Ecosystem Fund. In addition, 47.6 million OP are expected to be unlocked for early seed contributors, and 15.3 million OP for investors.

As a result of these developments, OP’s circulating supply is estimated to reach approximately 2.5 billion tokens by April 2027. This amount corresponds to approximately 58.3% of the total OP supply of 4.29 billion.

The Optimism Foundation added that the tokens being released are within the scope of the project’s initial allocation plan. The foundation clarified that no new token allocation was requested and that operations are proceeding entirely within the existing distribution framework.

Optimism’s OP Expenses Decreased

Optimism Collective reportedly received new commitments totaling approximately 150 million OP in its fourth year of operation, covering the period from May 2025 to April 2026. This figure represents a decrease of about one-third compared to the 229.92 million OP recorded in the third year.

Optimism stated that the decline in spending stemmed from the discontinuation of the Retro Funding program, the absence of a user airdrop during that period, a reduction in the Grants Council budget, and a decrease in grants awarded by the foundation.

In its fourth year, the amount of new OP entering circulation through the Governance Fund decreased by 53% year-on-year, from 28.7 million OP to 13.4 million OP. The amount of tokens distributed under Retro Funding also decreased by 30%, from 20.3 million OP to 14.2 million OP. No allocations were made under the airdrop programs in the fourth year, compared to 10.4 million OP distributed the previous year.

*This is not investment advice.