• Optimism plans to use 50% of Superchain revenue for OP token buybacks
  • Governance will decide whether the bought-back OP is burned, staked, or reused.

Optimism has proposed a major change to how its ecosystem uses its revenue. The plan is to buy back the OP tokens every month by using 50% of its Superchain revenue. If the Community approves this plan, Optimism is planned to start in February 2026. This makes a major shift in OP’s Role from being just a governance token to a token that is directly tied to the usage and revenue of the Ecosystem. 

How Optimism Plans to Turn Superchain Fees Into OP Token Demand

The Buyback will happen from the revenue earned by the Superchain from the Sequencer fees. Over the past years, these chains have generated over 5,800 ETH in revenue. So under the proposal, 50% of the revenue will be used to buy OP tokens. Purchases will be made monthly through the OTC Provider. The bought OP tokens will be sent back to the treasury.  This will be paused if monthly revenue drops below $200,000. These treasury tokens would not be burned or sold immediately. The Governance would later decide whether to burn or use them for staking and ecosystem incentives. 

The reason for this new plan is to make the OP’s value reflect its real economic activity instead of revenue sitting unused in the treasury. Optimism and Superchain agave become dominant players in layer-2. 61.4% of the L2 fee market share and 13% of all on-chain transactions are where the most L2 economic activity is happening. 

The Foundation will have the limited discretion to manage remaining ETH. They can use it to generate yield and support ecosystem development. This reduces slow governance overhead while keeping spending within set rules. The Staking partnerships have already generated yield and aim to strengthen OP mainnet’s institutional appeal. 

There has been some debate going on for the community members because the proposal combines OP buybacks and expanded treasury discretion in one vote. The Critics argue that these should be voted on separately to avoid bias from the price expectations. The community discussion is going on, a governance call is scheduled for Jan 12, and a formal vote happens on Jan 22. Once it is approved, the buyback will begin in February and the program will run for 12 months. 

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