Key Takeaways
- The Optimism crew has laid out plans for “A New Chapter” within the community’s development.
- The Layer 2 answer has confirmed a transfer towards “group possession and governance,” hinting that it could quickly situation a token.
- Coinbase has additionally created a web page for an Optimism token, resulting in additional hypothesis.
Share this text
Optimism has launched a brand new weblog submit suggesting it would implement a system of “group possession and governance.” This, mixed with a token itemizing web page on Coinbase, has led onlookers to consider the Layer 2 answer is gearing as much as launch an Optimism token.
Optimism Teases Token
Optimism might be the following Ethereum Layer 2 mission to launch a token.
In a Tuesday Mirror post, the Optimism crew laid out plans for what it calls “A New Chapter” within the community’s development.
After masking a number of important milestones within the community’s historical past, corresponding to its launch, EVM equivalence improve, and mainnet deployment, the submit concluded by highlighting Optimism’s plans for the long run.
“We’re nearing the tip of a chapter and the start of the following—one pushed by group possession and governance,” the submit learn, implying that Optimism is gearing as much as decentralize by means of launching an Optimism token.
Shifting towards group possession and governance is a well-liked transfer for Web3 networks and protocols. DeFi tasks often situation tokens to undertake governance constructions. Standard strategies embody distributing tokens by means of liquidity farming initiatives, promoting them in preliminary DEX choices, or airdropping them to early customers.
Within the case of Optimism, it might probably distribute tokens to customers of the community’s DeFi protocols, as Polygon did throughout its liquidity mining program in early 2021. Nonetheless, many Optimism customers are as a substitute hoping for a token airdrop to early customers, just like how the Ethereum Title Service distributed its governance token to those that had bought ENS names earlier than the token launch.
Extra proof for an upcoming Optimism token has surfaced by way of Coinbase. The Twitter consumer Tree of Alpha identified a web page that seems to point out an Optimism token on the alternate’s web site, though it doesn’t but seem in search outcomes.

Whereas it’s unknown why an Optimism token web page is already reside on Coinbase, it’s attainable the alternate created the web page early because it did for the March launch of Bored Ape Yacht Membership’s ApeCoin. Shortly after Tree of Life’s submit, the crypto persona and UpOnly podcast co-host Cobie additionally posted screenshots of Coinbase’s Optimism token web page. “Is the Optimism token launch upon us?” he wrote.
Optimism is certainly one of a number of Optimistic Rollups working to scale Ethereum. The community affords customers vastly decreased fuel charges whereas preserving a lot of Ethereum mainnet’s safety. Optimism at present hosts $590 million in complete worth locked throughout its DeFi protocols, in line with data from L2BEAT.
Whereas an Optimism token will not be but confirmed, present indicators point out an imminent launch. Whether or not the tokens shall be airdropped to early customers or distributed by means of another means continues to be unclear.
Disclosure: On the time of scripting this piece, the creator owned ETH and several other different cryptocurrencies.