Optimism governance approved a proposal to move 54.69 million OP tokens out of a reserve earmarked for future user airdrops and into a Strategic Ecosystem Fund run by the Optimism Foundation. At the time of the vote, the tokens were worth roughly $49.7 million.
The decision removes the remaining dedicated pool for future user airdrops. Under the proposal, the Foundation is authorized to use the tokens for partnership deals, incentives and other initiatives meant to grow OP Mainnet and OP Enterprise. The text of the proposal also said no additional airdrops are currently planned, and that tokens already distributed through Airdrops 1 to 5 remain untouched.
A late vote decided the outcome
Approval hinged on a last-minute vote from Test in Prod, an Optimism core development team. With 16 minutes and 52 seconds remaining, the team cast 8.486 million OP in favor.
The onchain vote closed with 17.974 million OP supporting the proposal and 10.931 million OP opposing it.
According to CoinDesk’s review of the tally, support stood at 45.77% before Test in Prod voted. After that ballot, support rose to 61.84%. Without the team’s position, final support would have been 46.47%.
How Test in Prod described its role
In a 2025 Optimism Security Council nomination, Test in Prod described itself as 「a core development team of Optimism Collective」 and said, 「We are fully funded by the Collective.」 The nomination said the team has worked on the OP Stack since 2022, including the execution client, network upgrades and fault-proof infrastructure.
Foundation takes control of the remaining airdrop reserve
Optimism Foundation said it had already distributed 269.1 million OP across five airdrops, but broad user acquisition no longer matched its current institutional strategy. The newly designated fund can be used to finance deals involving chains, protocols, institutions and infrastructure, and to support incentives tied to activity and liquidity on OP Mainnet.
The reallocation drew opposition from delegates who agreed the unused airdrop reserve should be reconsidered but objected to the scope of the replacement fund.
L2BEAT’s governance team said the mandate was 「very open-ended」 and asked for clearer information on expected deployments, how those deployments would be evaluated and what success would look like.
Public token accounting to be updated
The approved proposal says the Foundation will update Optimism’s public token accounting and report cumulative deployments from the Strategic Ecosystem Fund through its yearly budget report.
It also states that the 269.1 million OP already distributed in the first five airdrops will not be clawed back or reclassified.