Optimism-funded team’s deciding vote shifts $49M in OP tokens away from users

Optimism’s Token House just voted to redirect roughly $49 million worth of OP tokens, and the beneficiary is not the user base. A January 2026 governance proposal passed with approximately 84% support, rerouting half of the Superchain’s net revenue toward recurring OP token buybacks over a 12-month pilot period. The Superchain, Optimism’s network of OP Stack-based chains, generates net revenue from sequencer fees and related activity. Under the newly approved plan, 50% of that revenue gets funneled into systematic OP token buybacks on a recurring basis across the pilot year. The vote cleared through the Token House, Optimism’s primary governance chamber where OP holders weigh in on financial policies and treasury allocation. Getting 84% approval in a governance vote is not trivial. Most contested DeFi governance proposals scrape by with slim majorities. That said, governance participation rates in on-chain systems tend to skew toward larger holders, which means the 84% figure reflects who showed up to vote, not necessarily the sentiment of every OP holder. Optimism has historically leaned on direct token distributions as a tool for community building. Airdrops, retroactive public g...