Optimism Foundation gains control of 546.9 million OP once set aside for users

Optimism token holders have voted to permit the transfer of 546.9 million OP from the collective’s user airdrop reserve.

The tokens are valued at ~$49 million. They land in a new pool the Optimism Foundation will manage. The voting closed on August 19, 2026.

Optimism voters clear the 51% threshold with a 62% total

The measure passed with 17,973,915 votes in favor against 10,930,696 opposed, the proposal page on Agora shows. That put support at about 62% of votes cast, above the 51% approval threshold.

The ballot also cleared its 16,540,389 quorum requirement. The proposal is now marked queued, with voting closed at 8:07 pm on August 19.

The vote came down to a late deciding vote from a team funded by Optimism itself. The onchain record only notes the running totals, without showing either the size of a single vote or the identity of the voter.

Filed by the Optimism Foundation, the proposal redesignates the OP left in the User Airdrop allocation as a Strategic Ecosystem Fund.

The document carries no substantive onchain transactions. It is a governance decision about how a large block of tokens gets labeled and who directs it.

The Foundation says that the renamed fund would bankroll adoption of OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise.

The proposal text covers “partnership deals that bring chains, protocols, institutions, and infrastructure to the OP Stack.”

It also contains incentives meant to strengthen activity and liquidity on OP Mainnet and plans to boost the OP Stack’s reach with institutions and large brands.

Tokens once earmarked for distribution to users become a discretionary pot for business development.

Optimism Foundation strengthens its grip on OP

As reported by Cryptopolitan at the time, the Collective passed OP-0017 in January, a proposal that would give half of the Superchain’s sequencer revenue to the Foundation to buy back OP each month.

The measure passed with 84.4%. The 12-month pilot kicked off in February, converting sequencer ETH into OP through an over-the-counter provider.

OP hit a low price of $0.2519 in December 2025. Since then, the Foundation has submitted several proposals that increase its power over the use of OP and treasury assets.

OP hit its all-time low of $0.08069 just three days ago, and even after this week’s bounce, the token sits only 25% above that floor.

It currently trades at $0.1008, up 10.7% on the day and 14% on the week, according to CoinGeko. The layer-2 platform token has a market cap of about $230.8 million and $57.8 million in 24-hour volume.

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