Optimism Plans 343 Million OP Increase As Buybacks Reach 9 Million

By Arslan Tabish | Edited By Ammar Raza,August 7, 2026, 3:30 AM

Optimism expects circulating supply to reach 2.504 billion OP by April 2027, equal to 58.3% of the token’s total supply. The forecast points to a large increase, but figures in the project’s budget update do not fully reconcile.

The Foundation published its Year 4 update and Year 5 outlook on Aug. 6. It listed 2.161 billion OP in circulation and a total supply of 4.295 billion.

Source: X

Why Do Optimism’s Supply Figures Differ?

An increment from the circulation number to the Year 5 end number would mean an increase of about 343 million OP. However, the forecasted numbers account for 272.9 million OPs.

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The ecosystem fund has the highest number, accounting for 200 million OP. Early contributors have 47.6 million OP, investors have 15.3 million OP, and the governance fund has 10 million OP.

The remaining amount of 70.1 million OP is unaccounted for in the listed categories in comparison with the Aug. 6 number. The financial year started in May, but Optimism did not provide an opening balance linking the forecasts to the ending number.

There are no releases forecasted in regard to airdrops and Retro Funding. Optimism said that the forecasts were only directional estimates, which could be revised depending on program results and governance input.

The second discrepancy can be observed between the budget and Optimism’s publicly available supply tracker. According to the update, there were 2,160,975,703 OP in circulation, but according to the supply tracker, there were 2,286,467,356 OP.

The two numbers vary by about 125.5 million OP. Optimism Foundation did not explain the reason for the difference between the numbers shown in the budget and supply tracker.

In the absence of the reconciliation, the 2.504 billion OP end point cannot be regarded as the full unlock schedule. Token releases do not guarantee the sales of the holdings.

Optimism allocated about 150 million OP in Year 4, which was 33% less than 229.92 million OP in Year 3.

Where Will Future Token Spending Go?

Governance fund releases declined by 53% to 13.4 million OP. Retro funding releases declined by 30% to 14.2 million, while there were no user airdrops.

The Ecosystem Fund Circulation increased by 53% to 208.5 million OP. The Optimism explained that most tokens were released due to vesting periods or milestones achieved by earlier partner grants.

The Retro Funding was stopped after the last payments for the missions in Season 7. Approximately 777.6 million OP were available to be rewarded in the future.

The future distribution will cover OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise clients. It allows fully managed, self-managed, and OP mainnet options for the exchanges, payment systems, and financial institutions.

The optimism referred to Bitpanda Vision Chain, Ink, and GIWA Chain of Dunamu in its agreements. In addition, it mentioned 70,000 active ether.fi cards and $220 million TVL.

The governance approved the 12-month buyback plan in January. It requires allocating 50% of the revenue from eligible Superchains to monthly buybacks. Over nine million OP had been purchased by Aug. 6.

This amount is lower than the 343 million OP that was implied by the budget estimates. Buybacks, circulation, and market sell-offs represent different streams of the tokens. Optimism aims to provide its next update by June 2027.

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