Overall, I am in favour of the proposal but would have loved to see the 2026 plan first; there is no guarantee that this proposal will have much impact if the projectâs fundamentals and adoption are struggling, not to mention the opportunity cost of using the funds.
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Buybacks = good.
This is a great and much needed proposal.
I also think itâs totally fine to have a buyback program alongside emissions, even if they technically cancel out (partially). The meme of the buyback is important. It allows people to clearly project what would happen if the superchain grows 100x. That narrative supports token price, which fuels growth. Without that narrative, $OP is seen as âjust a useless governance tokenâ.
I am glad to know that the OP Foundation has understood the need to align $OP tokenholders to the Superchain economy, however, I do not believe that the proposal under discussion will be beneficial in the long term. As long as the Superchain remains the beating heart of the technological infrastructure in terms of rollup adoption (Base, Ink, Unichain, etc.), it must also be accountable to all $OP stakeholders, including Superchain users themselves, not just tokenholders with voting power.
As @Myles said, buybacks are a very useful tool, but they donât necessarily generate utility for the ecosystem. Before even thinking about the actual buyback strategy, I would solve two important problems, one of which emerged in the original proposal itself:
- There isnât enough deep liquidity on DEXs.
- The issue of emissions persists after all these years.
@GFXlabs certainly has better tools and expertise than I do to report on emissions issues, but the point I would like to make is that it makes no sense to seek OTC partners when there is a lack of liquidity on the Superchain itself.
Why would anyone buy OP if OP Foundation itself is uncapable of doing it on its infrastructure?
It makes much more sense not to pass the proposal and to listen to the community on this issue.
Counter-Proposal: No Buybacks & No Discretion over ETH Treasury
The Optimism Foundation has clearly been unable to manage the ETH Treasury, let alone properly incentivize adoption of the $OP governance token, to the extent that the idea of relying on an OTC agreement for the token buyback has been proposed.
OTC agreements are not only less transparent than on-chain buyback models, but they also do not return value to all stakeholders as they have less impact on price action.
My (current) counter-proposal:
- Separate the alignment proposal into two separate proposals, as suggested by other users.
- Cancel the $OP buyback proposal and focus efforts on reducing emissions and improving liquidity on the Superchain.
- Reduce the Foundationâs discretionary power over the ETH Treasury, entrusting it entirely to Governance, and therefore to $OP tokenholders, aiming for proposals based on informed analysis.
To make a better contribution, I would focus this message exclusively on improving on-chain liquidity: a buyback model is not acceptable without first building a sufficiently liquid market. For this reason, I propose:
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Offering liquidity on the
OP/WETHpools on Uniswap V3 or V4 and Velodrome V2 Slipstream using sequencer fees in order to improve on-chain liquidity and enable potential future buyback programs. If you look at the liquidity depth of the following charts, youâll notice how theyâre thin and unable to provide any reliability for wealthy investors or buyback program models. -
Entering into agreements with lending protocols (AAVE, Morpho, Compound, Fluid) to ensure favorable conditions for those borrowing stablecoins against
OP, discouraging grant recipients from dumping their allocations inOP.
In order to do that, we need to start with a better liquidity structure, one that is not based on a series of illiquid pools like the ones I am showing here.
Letâs look at the two main pools, 0x68F5C0A2DE713a54991E01858Fd27a3832401849 on Uniswap V3 (30bps) and 0x4dc22588ade05c40338a9d95a6da9dcee68bcd60 on Velodrome (dynamic 5bps), which have ~$645K and ~$425K TVL, respectively. If OP Foundation would allocate even a fraction of its sequencer fees single-side on Velodrome and/or Uniswap in WETH token, it would be possible to support $OP token price, and maybe allow the Community to ask for a decent on-chain buyback model.
Another positive aspect of POL (Protocol Owned Liquidity) is that OP Foundation would accumulate OP from open market via trading fees, which could be burned forever or used in other ways (liquidity mining, grants, autocompound, etcâŚ).
Hope my contribute can be helpful to anyone of this community, open to discussion about data and serious proposals, hoping that OP Foundation listens the community on this. I trust that TradFi non-sense doesnât ruin Superchain growing economy.
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The following reflects the views of L2BEATâs governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Manugotsuka, and itâs based on their combined research, fact-checking, and ideation.
Overall, itâs good to see OP value accrual being addressed more directly. A buyback mechanism can help create a clearer connection between Superchain activity and OP demand, and in that sense, it can be read as a signal of confidence in the ecosystem.
That said, buybacks on their own donât automatically lead to long-term value capture. More clarity on why holding OP is preferred over alternatives like burning, or what concrete future uses are being considered, would make the value-accrual path easier to assess.
On the execution side, the use of OTC providers is typically intended to help manage liquidity and market impact. At the same time, since this introduces a recurring source of buy pressure, additional transparency around how OTC execution will work in practice would be helpful. More details on how this mechanism will be handled could help delegates and tokenholders feel more comfortable with this action. Similarly, the choice to allocate 50% of Superchain revenue to buybacks is presented as a reasonable starting point, but some context on how this number was reached, and whether alternatives were considered, will be helpful as well.
On the treasury management side, actively using ETH instead of leaving it idle should improve capital efficiency, but expanding the Foundationâs discretion makes clear guardrails and review processes especially important. While the buyback program is framed as a 12-month initiative, it would be helpful to clarify whether the same re-evaluation timeline applies to the expanded ETH management mandate. Given that these are two distinct policy decisions, splitting the buyback and treasury management changes into separate proposals could also allow each to be evaluated on its own merits and lead to clearer mandates.
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I personally support the critics of the proposal. Buyback on their own are not a solution for the lack of utility of OP.
Realistically, youâre talking about $500k in buybacks over a month period. It is trivial to use the many routers present on Optimism that integrate both onchain and offchain execution, particularly if the monthly buyback is broken into weekly or bi-weekly tranches.
We recommend you try execution the includes onchain first, and if it doesnât perform satisfactorily, then try OTC as a fallback for better price.
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Thanks for the thoughtful feedback @Manugotsuka! We discussed these topics on the community call but since not everyone was able to attend, Iâll provide a summary here as well.
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Weâve proposed 50% of revenue based on analyses we did on trading volumes, the relative size / impact of other buyback programs, etc. 50% also allows us to continue accruing ETH to the treasury and retain optionality over future uses of that ETH. We did consider the full range of alternatives and landed on 50% as the starting point that best balanced near term impact with future adaptability.
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We have decided to hold the repurchased OP, rather than burn it, as it allows for the same optionality over future use. We could also burn OP without doing a buyback, so itâs not the burn that creates the connection between Superchain success and OP.
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100% agree with the need for transparency around OTC execution and the Foundation will make all relevant data public on a monthly basis. We agree that OTC is not the optimal long term execution mechanism; however, we do believe it is the optimal short term execution path (for reasons we discussed on the community call) and aim to transition this to an onchain mechanism within ~6 months. Weâve already taken the first step on this path with Protocol Upgrade 18.
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It is time to get OP brand back to the top again. Dismal token performance repels any interested explorer to the chain. It may sound not logical but it is the reality. Lets make OP great again.
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As a citizen I am unable to cast my vote on this proposal. What could be the issue?
Thank you. Besides that great thread, with so many meaningful contributions.
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Hey @Johnwick - could you please reach out to me on TG so we can resolve this? My TG is @jonassft.
For anyone, else experiencing problems - please also contact me via Telegram 
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This is a very bold move, and Iâm a little skeptical about this proposal, itâs a 50/50 split. But I hope for the best if itâs approved.
Thanks Jonas. Let me hit you up on Telegram.