Optimism Foundation Predicts Massive OP Circulation Growth

The Optimism Foundation has released its fifth annual budget update and forecast for the period of May 2026 to April 2027. According to the foundation, the circulating supply of OP is expected to increase from approximately 216.1 billion to around 250.4 billion, accounting for 58.3% of the total supply.

During this period, it's estimated that around 343 million new OP will enter circulation. This includes 2 billion from the ecological fund, 47.6 million from early core contributors, and 15.3 million from investors. The governance fund is expected to receive 10 million OP.

The foundation notes that these tokens are all from the initial distribution framework and were not applied for separately. The update aims to increase transparency.

Token deployment will continue to focus on two main strategies: growing the OP mainnet and acquiring enterprise clients through OP Enterprise. In the previous year, Optimism committed around 1.5 billion new OP expenditures, a decrease of about one-third from the previous year. OP Enterprise went live in January 2026 with early clients including Bitpanda, Ink, Dunamu, and Ether.fi.