Optimism token delegates approved a governance proposal moving 546.9 million OP—about 12.7% of total supply and roughly $49.7 million—from the user airdrop allocation into a new Strategic Ecosystem Fund controlled by the Optimism Foundation.
The official tally was 17.974 million OP in favor and 10.931 million OP against. The decisive support came from Test in Prod, a core development team that has described itself as fully funded by the Optimism Collective. The team cast 8.486 million OP with 16 minutes and 52 seconds left, lifting approval from 45.77% to 61.84%. Without that vote, the proposal would have closed at 46.47% and the tokens would have remained in the user airdrop bucket.
The Foundation argued that mass airdrops no longer align with its institutional adoption strategy and that unused tokens could fund partnerships, incentives and corporate agreements. However, critics including L2BEAT and researcher Polynya warned that the proposal creates open-ended Foundation discretion without per-deal oversight or a clear link to token holder value.
Test in Prod defended the move by citing competitive pressure: “We are in an uphill battle, the enterprise market is expensive and the window is now.” The team asked the Foundation to disclose aggregated deployment results after the fact, but the lack of a public breakdown of specific allocations remains a transparency concern for OP holders.
