Optimism

Optimism is a Layer 2 scaling network built on top of Ethereum, designed to make transactions faster and cheaper than transacting directly on Ethereum's base layer. It operates as a growing family of blockchains called the Superchain, all sharing a common open-source framework known as the OP Stack, which other organizations such as Coinbase, Uniswap, Kraken, and Worldcoin have used to launch their own chains. The OP token gives holders the ability to participate in governance decisions about protocol upgrades and how collected funds are allocated.

Optimism processes transactions off Ethereum's main chain and periodically posts compressed transaction data back to Ethereum for settlement, a design called an optimistic rollup because transactions are assumed valid unless someone submits a fraud proof challenging them. The OP Stack is the standardized codebase that any team can use to launch a compatible chain, and all such chains that join the Superchain follow a shared revenue model: the greater of 2.5% of total chain revenue or 15% of on-chain profit flows back to the Optimism Collective. On the most recent full day recorded (2026-10-14), OP Mainnet processed approximately 1,994,923 transactions at a median fee of $0.000031 per transaction and consumed 9.62 units of gas per second.

Fee revenue comes from users paying transaction fees on OP Mainnet and, through the Superchain revenue-sharing model, from other chains built on the OP Stack. Those chains remit the greater of 2.5% of total revenue or 15% of on-chain profit to the Optimism Collective, which then funds ecosystem development and governance. The stablecoin supply hosted on the network stood at approximately $680,370,498 on 2026-10-14, and the ratio of market capitalization to that stablecoin supply was 0.44 at the point-in-time reading, indicating the market capitalization is less than half the value of stablecoins settled on the chain.