Proposal Type: Rights Protections
Executive Summary
The Optimism Foundation is proposing to re-designate the unspent tokens in the User Airdrop allocation as a new allocation category, the Strategic Ecosystem Fund, proposed for deploying tokens to grow OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise.
Motivation
For the Optimism Collective’s first several years, airdrops were among the most important tools the Foundation had. Across five airdrops, the Collective distributed 269.1M OP to bring hundreds of thousands of users and contributors into the ecosystem. Each was treated as an experiment and studied in the open, including through academic analysis of whether the mechanism achieved its goals, such as Did OP Airdrop 2 Increase Governance Engagement? by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak and Did OP Airdrop 5 Increase User Retention Rates? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis.
Taken together, these findings point to a fit problem: airdrops were built for an earlier phase of the Collective’s growth, centered on broad based user acquisition. That motion does not match the institutional adoption strategy OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise are built around today. This is not necessarily a permanent verdict on airdrops as a mechanism, rather it reflects that, given what we’ve learned, they are not the right tool for Optimism’s present growth priorities. Should new designs or use-cases emerge that address these limitations, the Foundation will revisit this assessment.
The result is a mismatch in Optimism’s token allocation: With no airdrops currently planned, a substantial pool of tokens the Foundation is authorized to deploy remains bound to a purpose the Collective is not currently pursuing. At the same time, the allocation that has supported the Collective’s growth work, the Partner, Seed, and Unallocated funds, has been successful at supporting OP stack adoption to 40%+ market share of L2 transactions.
Meanwhile the Foundation’s strategy has entered a new phase: With OP Enterprise, Optimism offers production-grade, managed blockchain infrastructure to fintechs, exchanges, payments companies, and financial institutions moving onchain, across Fully Managed, Self Managed, and OP Mainnet tiers. OP Mainnet is the entry point of that journey: institutions can validate their model on the public network with real users and deep liquidity, then graduate to a dedicated chain when ready. This is already driving strong results across Bitpanda’s Vision Chain, Ink’s upgrade to Fully Managed, Dunamu signed MOU for GIWA Chain, and Ether.fi bringing payments-oriented DeFi to OP Mainnet with $220M in TVL and 70,000+ active cards.
Accelerating this growth requires additional deployment of tokens, both in partnerships and in deals that bring institutions onto the network. Thus, the Foundation is proposing to repurpose the unspent tokens from the User Airdrop allocation into a new allocation, the Strategic Ecosystem Fund, dedicated to growing OP Enterprise and OP Mainnet. This ensures idle tokens can be put to productive use and aligns Optimism’s token allocation with Optimism’s strategy.
Specifications
Technical details
- Create a new allocation category, the Strategic Ecosystem Fund, within the overall OP token allocations.
- Re-designate the unspent Airdrop allocation balance of 546.9M OP to the Strategic Ecosystem Fund.
- The purpose of the Strategic Ecosystem Fund is to deploy tokens to grow OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise adoption, including partnership deals that bring chains, protocols, institutions, and infrastructure to the OP Stack; incentives that deepen onchain activity and liquidity on OP Mainnet; and deals that expand the OP Stack’s reach with institutions and top-tier brands.
- Tokens already distributed via Airdrops #1 through #5 are unaffected.
Action Plan
- Upon approval, the Foundation updates the OP token allocation documentation to reflect the Strategic Ecosystem Fund and its purpose, and reflects the re-designation in the public token accounting.
- Tokens deployed from the Strategic Ecosystem Fund follow the Foundation’s existing deployment and reporting practices.
- Progress and cumulative deployment are reported to the Collective through the yearly Foundation budget report.
Conclusion
Rather than leave a large pool of tokens locked to a purpose the Collective no longer pursues, this proposal re-allocates those tokens toward the growth of OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise.
The Foundation requests the Collective’s approval to re-designate the unspent Airdrop allocation as the Strategic Ecosystem Fund.