Optimism

OP is the governance token of Optimism, whose OP Stack software runs OP Mainnet and a family of Ethereum layer-2 chains.

OP Mainnet is a layer-2 network for Ethereum: it runs transactions cheaply and posts data back to Ethereum, which secures it. L2BEAT rates it Stage 1 with permissionless fault proofs and showed about $1.95 billion of value secured on 1 October 2026. The same OP Stack software runs other chains in the 'Superchain', including Base, Unichain, Ink and World Chain.

OP is not used to pay fees; users pay in ETH. OP holders vote on upgrades and on how the Optimism Collective spends its funds. Superchain chains pay the Collective the greater of 2.5% of their revenue or 15% of their on-chain profit, which came to 5,868 ETH in the 12 months to January 2026.

In January 2026 governance approved a one-year plan to spend 50% of that revenue on monthly OP purchases from February 2026; the tokens go back to the treasury. About 2.30 billion of 4.29 billion OP were circulating on 1 October 2026.

A 2-of-2 multisig (the Optimism Foundation and a 10-of-13 Security Council) can upgrade OP Mainnet with no delay, and one operator runs the sequencer, though users can force transactions in through Ethereum. In September 2026 Optimism signed a tokenised-fund partnership with KB Securities and Securitize and took on Soneium as an OP Enterprise client.