OP

Optimism

Layer 2

The OP Stack powers many Ethereum L2s, but Base's exit took most of the revenue behind OP's buybacks.

Strong stack, weak token v1.1 · as of 2026-10-21 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Optimism's OP Stack is still one of the main ways to launch an Ethereum rollup, and new deals like ether.fi Cash and Unichain's move to OP Enterprise show the tech keeps winning work. The token has not benefited: −69% over a year and −97% from its 2024 ATH, after Base, which supplied over 90% of Superchain revenue, announced in February that it would leave the OP Stack. The buyback pilot approved in January now buys about 87% less OP each month, while ~216M OP still unlocks before Apr 2027. OP is a cheap option on Optimism turning OP Enterprise and interop into revenue, but that link is not proven yet.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$0.1324
+2.4% 24h · +7% 30d · CoinGecko 21 Oct
Market cap
$304.5M
rank #143 · FDV $568.8M
24h volume
$62.8M
20.6% of market cap
From ATH
−97%
ATH $4.84, Mar 2024
2026 YTD
−51%
$0.2682 → $0.1324
OP bought back
~9.45M OP
cumulative by Aug · ~$0.98M in 3 tranches

The last 12 months

$0.25$0.5$0.75Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJan 272025-10-27: $0.4647$0.46 peak2026-08-19: $0.082$0.082 low2026-10-14: $0.1586$0.1592026-10-21: $0.1325$0.13112-month high at $0.462Buyback pilot approved3Base leaves the OP Stack4ether.fi Cash live on OP Mainnet5Buybacks fall 87%6Year low at $0.0827Upgrade 20 approved8Unichain moves to OP Enterprise9Unichain mainnet migration10Buyback pilot review
MarketGovernanceTechAdoptionTokenomicsUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 22 Oct 2025 to 21 Oct 2026. Intraday wicks do not show.

Key events
  1. 1
    27 Oct 25 12-month high at $0.46. OP's best close of the period; it then slides for ten months.
  2. 2
    28 Jan 26 Buyback pilot approved. 84.4% of votes back spending 50% of net sequencer revenue on monthly OP buybacks for 12 months from February.
  3. 3
    18 Feb 26 Base leaves the OP Stack. Base moves to its own codebase and keeps its sequencer revenue; OP falls about 20% in the following days.
  4. 4
    15 Apr 26 ether.fi Cash live on OP Mainnet. ~70,000 cards and ~$220M move over from Scroll, the largest TVL event in OP Mainnet history.
  5. 5
    10 Aug 26 Buybacks fall 87%. Monthly purchases drop to ~926k OP; the Foundation will not commit to the program beyond 12 months.
  6. 6
    19 Aug 26 Year low at $0.082. Daily close low, −82% from the October 2025 high; OP rebounds to $0.15 by late September.
  7. 7
    16 Sep 26 Upgrade 20 approved. Super-root dispute games, a prerequisite for interop; mainnet activation reported around 25 Sep.
  8. 8
    14 Oct 26 Unichain moves to OP Enterprise. Testnet migrated on 13 Oct; OP jumps ~19% to $0.159, then partly retraces.
  9. 9
    29 Oct 26 Unichain mainnet migration. Optimism takes over Unichain's sequencer, RPC and incident response; chain ID and contracts unchanged.
  10. 10
    Jan 27 Buyback pilot review. The 12-month pilot ends; governance decides whether to extend, resize or stop OP buybacks.

How a transaction flows through OP Mainnet and the Superchain

User
Sends a swap or card payment

Signs a transaction in a wallet or app such as ether.fi Cash; gas is paid in ETH.

Sequencer
Orders it in ~2 s

Run by the Foundation or, for clients, OP Enterprise; gives a fast soft confirmation.

Batcher
Posts data to Ethereum

Compressed batches go to Ethereum blobs; the L1 data cost is part of the fee.

Proposer
Commits the state root

Since Upgrade 20 a super root covers the chain set; anyone can open a fault-proof challenge.

Ethereum
Finalizes after challenge window

Withdrawals to L1 settle after about 7 days if no fraud proof succeeds.

Collective
Takes a revenue share

Superchain chains pay part of sequencer revenue to the Collective; 50% of net revenue buys OP during the pilot.

Where OP comes in: nowhere in the transaction itself. Users pay gas in ETH and the sequencer earns ETH. OP is used for governance votes and is bought by the treasury with half of net sequencer revenue during the buyback pilot; bought OP is held, not burned.

Usage and adoption

USD: OP bought back vs OP still to unlock (Aug 2026 to Apr 2027)
Buybacks done, first 3 tranches
~$0.98M
Buyback plan per year, before Base left
~$8.4M
OP still to unlock before Apr 2027
~$19.7M

Buybacks: 513.9 ETH (~$975k) across the first three tranches, ~9.45M OP in total (BeInCrypto, Aug 2026). The plan approved in January assumed ~2,900 ETH (~$8.4M) a year from 50% of the Superchain's 5,868 ETH of yearly sequencer revenue, most of it from Base. Unlocks: ~216M OP valued by the Foundation at ~$19.7M in August (about $28.6M at today's $0.132). Buybacks now offset only a small part of new supply.

  • medium signal
    OP buybacks
    ~926k OP / month

    Latest reported tranche, down 87% from ~6.95M OP. Real revenue-funded demand, but small and only committed until ~Jan 2027.

  • weak signal
    Sequencer revenue
    5,868 ETH / year

    Superchain total for the year before the buyback vote. Base supplied over 90% and is leaving, so the forward figure is far lower.

  • medium signal
    Stablecoins
    ~$550M

    OP Mainnet, DefiLlama snapshot (date not shown, search snippet). USDT ~36% of the total.

  • medium signal
    DeFi TVL
    ~$302M

    OP Mainnet, DefiLlama snapshot. ether.fi Cash added ~$220M in April by Optimism's own count.

  • weak signal
    Enterprise clients
    Unichain, ether.fi

    OP Enterprise runs Unichain's sequencer and RPC from 29 Oct. Revenue terms are not public.

Optimism still wins builders, but the money that reached OP holders came mostly from Base, and that source is going away. Watch whether OP Enterprise deals and interop produce sequencer or service revenue large enough to restart meaningful buybacks.

Project

What it is
Optimism builds the OP Stack, open-source software for Ethereum layer-2 rollups, and runs OP Mainnet. Chains on the stack that share revenue with the Optimism Collective form the Superchain.
Team
Built by OP Labs and stewarded by the Optimism Foundation; governed by the Optimism Collective (Token House of OP holders plus a Citizens' House).
Technology
Optimistic rollup with permissionless fault proofs. Upgrade 20 (approved 16 Sep 2026) replaced single-chain output roots with multi-chain super roots, a prerequisite for native Superchain interop.
Traction
ether.fi Cash moved ~70,000 cards and ~$220M to OP Mainnet in Apr 2026; Uniswap's Unichain is handing operations to OP Enterprise. OP Mainnet DeFi TVL is only ~$302M (DefiLlama).
Competitors
Arbitrum (Orbit), Base's own stack, ZKsync, Polygon CDP, and fast L1s such as Solana.
Key risks
Base, the largest OP Stack chain and >90% of Superchain revenue, announced its exit on 18 Feb 2026. OP is not needed for gas, so value capture depends on governance-run buybacks.
Roadmap
Unichain mainnet move to OP Enterprise on 29 Oct 2026; native interop between OP Stack chains (no date yet); review of the 12-month buyback pilot when it ends around Jan 2027.

Token performance

1-year return (22 Oct 2025 → 21 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
OP
-69%
BTC
-22%
ETH
-35%

OP lagged BTC and ETH badly over 12 months. Over 3 years it is down roughly −90% (from ~$1.30 in Oct 2023), against BTC (~+179%, from ~$29.7k) and ETH (~+53%, from ~$1.6k). 3-year figures are manual and approximate because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.082 low (19 Aug) to $0.37 high (14 Jan), daily closes; now $0.132 (−51% YTD)
12-month drawdown
−82%, from $0.46 (27 Oct 2025) to $0.082 (19 Aug 2026)
Liquidity
$62.8M traded in 24h, ~21% of market cap; rank #143
Relative strength
+62% off the August low; +19% on 14 Oct on the Unichain deal, partly given back
ATH check ATH check passed. The $4.84 high came on 6 Mar 2024, almost two years after OP began trading in mid-2022, so it is a real cycle high and is used as the reference; OP is −97% from it.

Tokenomics

Supply
4.29B OP total supply; ~2.30B (54%) circulating. Market cap $305M vs fully diluted $569M.
Inflation
The design lets governance mint new OP (up to 2% a year); circulating supply grows mainly through unlocks and Foundation grants. Whether any inflation has been switched on is not confirmed here.
Unlocks
~216M OP was still scheduled to reach the market before Apr 2027 (Foundation figure, Aug 2026), valued then at ~$19.7M, about 9% of market cap.
Utility
Governance only. Gas on OP Mainnet and other OP Stack chains is paid in ETH, so using the chain does not require OP.
Concentration
Foundation-held ecosystem funds, core contributors and investors hold most of the ~46% not yet circulating; Foundation grants and incentives remain a steady source of sell pressure.
Sinks
12-month buyback pilot (from Feb 2026): 50% of net sequencer revenue buys OP for the treasury, not a burn. Monthly purchases fell 87% after Base left; ~9.45M OP bought in total.

Bull case

OP Enterprise signs more chains after Unichain, interop goes live and pulls activity onto the Superchain, and governance extends and enlarges the buyback past Jan 2027. Price holds above the ~$0.12 September breakout and retests the $0.159 October spike, then $0.27 (Jan 2026 level).

Bear case

Without Base, Superchain revenue stays too small to matter while ~216M OP unlocks by Apr 2027; the buyback pilot quietly ends. OP loses $0.12 and revisits the $0.082 August low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • Monthly buyback size and whether the pilot is extended after ~Jan 2027
  • Unichain mainnet move on 29 Oct and new OP Enterprise clients
  • Base's migration off the OP Stack and the remaining Superchain revenue
  • $0.12 support and the $0.082 August low; unlock flow to Apr 2027

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

OP against EUR · USD

24h $461.2k · ±2% depth $243.3k

OKXlisted

OP against EUR · USDT · USDC · TRY

24h $2.78M · ±2% depth $521.8k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceOP/USDT$4.41M$707.7k
OKXOP/USDT$2.48M$498.9k
CoinbaseOP/USD$1.04M$368.5k
BybitOP/USDT$985.6k$400.8k
GateOP/USDT$420.8k$667.9k

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
Velodrome SlipStreamCLOP/WETH · Optimism$20.9k$21.2k
Uniswap V3CLOP/WETH · Optimism$100.7k$11.6k
CurveOP/CRVUSD · Optimism$26.2k$8.93k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all OP volume: 3.6%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

Where to follow

Official
People on X
Code and governance
Data
Media