Author: @13300RPM, Four Pillars
Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
Original title: Base is leaving, Optimism will not stay.
Key points
Highly concentrated revenue: In 2025, Base contributed approximately 71% of Superchain's sequencer revenue. This concentration trend is intensifying, yet Coinbase's payments to Optimism remain fixed at 2.5%.
Price and ecosystem divergence: OP tokens plummeted 93% from their all-time high ($4.84 → $0.32), while Base's total value locked (TVL) increased by 48% during the same period ($3.1 billion → $5 billion). The market has realized that Base's growth has not benefited OP holders, but has not yet considered the risk of Base potentially exiting the market.
Zero technical barrier: OP Stack uses the MIT open-source license, meaning Coinbase can fork it at any time. Currently, the only bond keeping Base on Superchain is governance, and a BASE token with independent governance rights would completely sever this connection.
A fragile alliance: Optimism gifted Base 118 million OP tokens to secure a long-term partnership, but limited its voting power to 9% of the total supply. This isn't a true synergy, but rather a minority stake with an "exit option." If renegotiation leads to a drop in the price of OP, it would be a worthwhile deal for Coinbase to forgo its share of the revenue from this gift.
Coinbase's L2 network, Base, contributed approximately 71% of Superchain's sequencer revenue in 2025, yet only paid out 2.5% of that to the Optimism Collective. The OP Stack, licensed under the MIT open-source license, offers virtually no legal or technical safeguards preventing Coinbase from threatening to withdraw to renegotiate terms or build independent infrastructure, rendering Superchain membership meaningless. OP holders are exposed to a revenue dependency on a single counterparty with significant downside risks, a fact we believe the market has not yet fully grasped.
1. Take 71% of the revenue and only pay 2.5% "rent".
When Optimism initially signed the agreement with Base, it assumed that no single chain could dominate the Superchain economic ecosystem, leading to an imbalance in revenue sharing. The fee sharing was calculated based on the higher of "2.5% of chain revenue" or "15% of on-chain profits (revenue minus L1 gas costs)," which seems reasonable for a collaborative and diversified Rollup ecosystem.
But this assumption was wrong. In 2025, Base generated $74 million in chain revenue, accounting for over 71% of all OP chain sequencer fees, yet only paid 2.5% to the Optimism Collective. This means Coinbase captured 28 times the value it paid. By October 2025, Base's TVL had reached $5 billion (a 48% increase in six months), becoming the first Ethereum L2 to cross this threshold. Its dominance has only increased since then.
The subsidy mechanism exacerbates this imbalance. While Base dominates revenue generation, the OP mainnet, which shares 100% of the profits with Collective, bears an excessive burden in terms of ecosystem contributions. In essence, the OP mainnet is subsidizing the political cohesion of this alliance, while the largest member pays the smallest share.
Where did these fees go? According to Optimism's official documentation, sequencer revenue flows into the Optimism Collective's vault. To date, this vault has accumulated over $34 million from Superchain fees, but these funds have not yet been used or allocated to any specific project.
The envisioned "flywheel" (fees fund public goods → public goods strengthen the ecosystem → the ecosystem generates more fees) hasn't even started spinning yet. Current projects like RetroPGF and ecosystem grants are funded by the issuance of new OP tokens, not by ETH in the treasury. This is significant because it undermines the core value proposition of joining Superchain. Base contributes approximately $1.85 million annually to a treasury, but this treasury doesn't provide direct economic returns to paying member chains.
The level of governance participation also speaks volumes. Base released its "Base Declaration on Participation in Optimism Governance" in January 2024. Since then, there has been no public activity: no proposals, no forum discussions, and no visible governance participation. As a chain contributing over 70% of Superchain's economic value, Base is clearly absent from the governance processes it claims to participate in. Even Optimism's own governance forum rarely mentions Base. The so-called "shared governance" value appears to both sides to be merely empty talk.
Therefore, the "value" of Superchain membership remains entirely future-oriented—future interoperability, future governance influence, and future network effects. For publicly traded companies that are accountable to their shareholders, "future value" is hardly convincing when current costs are concrete and ongoing.
The ultimate question boils down to: Does Coinbase have any economic incentive to maintain the status quo? And what will happen when they decide they no longer need it?
2. The possibility of a "fork" at any time.
This is the legal reality behind all Superchain relationships: OP Stack is a public good under the MIT license. Anyone in the world can clone, fork, or deploy it for free, without any permission.
So, what keeps chains like Base, Mode, Worldcoin, and Zora within Superchain? According to Optimism's documentation, the answer lies in a series of "soft constraints": shared governance participation, shared upgrades and security, an ecosystem fund, and the legitimacy of the Superchain brand. Chains choose to join voluntarily, not under duress.
We believe this distinction is crucial when assessing the risks of OPs.
Imagine what Coinbase would lose by forking: participation in Optimism governance, the "Superchain" brand, and access to coordinated protocol upgrades.
Consider what they will retain: 100% of the $5 billion TVL, all users, all applications deployed on the base, and over $74 million in sequencer revenue annually.
For "soft constraints" to work, Base needs to obtain something from Optimism that it cannot build or purchase on its own. However, there is evidence that Base is already building this independence. In December 2025, Base launched a cross-chain bridge directly to Solana, using Coinbase's own infrastructure and built on Chainlink CCIP, rather than relying on Superchain's interoperability solution. This indicates that Base is not waiting for Superchain's interoperability solution.
We are not asserting that Coinbase will fork tomorrow. What we want to point out is that the MIT protocol itself is a fully-fledged "exit option," and Coinbase's recent actions indicate that they are actively reducing their reliance on the value provided by Superchain. A BASE token with independent governance will complete this transformation, reducing those "soft constraints" from meaningful constraints to purely ritualistic associations.
For OP holders, the question is simple: if the only reason to keep Base on Superchain is just a facade of an "ecosystem alliance," what will happen when Coinbase decides that this charade is no longer worthwhile?
3. Negotiations have already begun.
"Start exploring"—this is the standard phrase used by every L2 6-12 months before the official token issuance.
In September 2025, Jesse Pollak announced at the BaseCamp conference that Base was "starting to explore" issuing a native token. He cautiously added that "there are no concrete plans at the moment," and that Coinbase "does not intend to announce a release date anytime soon." This is noteworthy because until the end of 2024, Coinbase had explicitly stated that it had no plans to issue a Base token. This announcement, coming months after Kraken's Ink network announced its INK token plans, signifies a shift in the competitive landscape of L2 tokenization.
We believe this phrasing is just as important as the substance. Pollak describes the token as "a powerful lever for expanding governance, ensuring consistent developer incentives, and opening up new design avenues." These are not neutral terms. Protocol upgrades, fee parameters, ecosystem grants, sequencer selection—these are precisely the areas currently governed by Superchain. A BASE token with governance rights over these decisions would overlap with Optimism's governance, while Coinbase would wield greater economic dominance.
To understand why the BASE token fundamentally changes relationships, it's necessary to first understand the current governance mechanism of Superchain.
The Optimism Collective is bicameral.
Token Council (OP Holders): Votes on protocol upgrades, grants, and governance proposals.
Citizens' Council (badge holders): Votes to decide on the allocation of RetroPGF funds.
Base's upgrade permissions are controlled by a 2/2 multisignature wallet, with Base and the Optimism Foundation as signatories—neither party can unilaterally upgrade Base's contract. Once fully implemented, the Security Council will execute the upgrade "according to the instructions of Optimism governance."
This structure grants Optimism shared control over Base, rather than unilateral control. The 2/2 multisignature mechanism acts as a check and balance: Optimism cannot force an upgrade that Base does not want, but Base cannot upgrade itself without Optimism's signature.
If Coinbase decides to follow the path of other L2 governance tokens like ARB and OP, structural conflicts will be inevitable. If BASE holders vote on protocol upgrades, whose decision takes precedence—BASE governance or OP governance? If BASE has its own grant program, why should Base's developers wait for RetroPGF? If BASE governance controls the sequencer selection, what power will 2/2 multisignature retain?
Crucially, Optimism governance cannot prevent Base from issuing a token with overlapping governance scope. The Laws of Chains stipulate user protection and interoperability standards, but do not restrict what chain governors can do with their own tokens. Coinbase could launch its BASE token tomorrow, possessing full governance rights over the Base protocol, and Optimism's only recourse will be political pressure—that increasingly ineffective "soft constraint."
Another interesting aspect is the constraint of being a publicly traded company. This will be the first time a publicly traded company has led a token generation event. Traditional token issuances and airdrops aim to maximize token value for private investors and the founding team. However, Coinbase has a fiduciary responsibility to COIN's shareholders. Any token allocation scheme must demonstrate that it enhances Coinbase's corporate value.
This is a game-changer. Coinbase can't just airdrop tokens to maximize community favor. They need a structure that can boost COIN's share price. One way to do this is to leverage the BASE token to renegotiate a lower revenue share from Superchain, thereby increasing Base's retention revenue and ultimately improving Coinbase's financial statements.
4. Rebuttal regarding "reputational risk"
The strongest argument against our point is that Coinbase, as a publicly traded company, positions itself as a model of "compliance and collaboration" in the crypto space. Forking the OP Stack to save millions of dollars in revenue sharing annually would seem stingy and damage its carefully cultivated brand image. This argument is worth serious consideration.
Superchain does indeed provide real value. Its roadmap includes native cross-chain communication, and the total locked value of all Ethereum L2 blockchains peaked at approximately $55.5 billion in December 2025. Base benefits from composability with the OP mainnet, Unichain, and Worldchain. Giving up this network effect comes at a cost.
In addition, there was a grant of 118 million OP tokens. To solidify the "long-term alliance," the Optimism Foundation gave Base the opportunity to receive approximately 118 million OP tokens over six years. At the time the agreement was reached, this grant was worth approximately $175 million.
However, we believe this defense misunderstands the real threat. The counter-assumption is a public, hardline fork. A more likely path is a mild renegotiation: Coinbase leveraging the BASE token to secure more favorable terms within Superchain. This negotiation is unlikely to be news outside of governance forums.
Let's look at the interoperability argument. Base has already built its own bridge to Solana using CCIP, independent of Optimism's interoperability solution. They didn't wait for Superchain's interoperability solution. They are building their own cross-chain infrastructure in parallel. When you're solving problems yourself, the soft constraint of "shared upgrades and security" becomes less important.
Now let's look at the OP grants. Base's power to use these grants for voting or delegation is limited to 9% of the voteable supply. This isn't deep binding, but rather a minority stake with limited governance. Coinbase cannot control Optimism with 9%, but Optimism also cannot control Base with it. At the current price (around $0.32), the entire $118 million grant is worth approximately $38 million. If, after renegotiation, the market drops OP by 30% due to lowered Base revenue expectations, Coinbase's book loss on this grant is negligible compared to permanently canceling or significantly reducing revenue sharing.
Reducing Coinbase's share of its over $74 million annual revenue from 2.5% to 0.5% would permanently save it over $1.4 million annually. In comparison, the one-time devaluation of OP grants by approximately $10 million is a small amount.
Institutional investors don't care about Superchain's politics. They care about Base's TVL, trading volume, and Coinbase's profitability. A renegotiated revenue split won't cause COIN's stock price to fluctuate. It will simply appear as a routine governance update on the Optimism forum and make Coinbase's L2 business profit margins look slightly better.
5. A single source of income with an "exit option"
We believe that OP has not yet been viewed by the market as an asset with counterparty risk, but it should be.
The token has fallen 93% from its all-time high of $4.84 to approximately $0.32, with a circulating market capitalization of about $620 million. The market has clearly revalued OP downwards, but we believe it has not yet fully priced in the structural risks embedded in the Superchain economic model.
The market divergence speaks volumes. Base's TVL surged from $3.1 billion in January 2025 to a peak of over $5.6 billion in October. Base is winning, while OP holders aren't. Consumer attention has almost entirely shifted to Base, and despite new partners joining, the OP mainnet lags behind in mainstream user adoption.
Superchain appears to be a decentralized collective. However, economically, it is heavily reliant on a single counterparty, who has a strong incentive to renegotiate.
Looking at revenue concentration: Base contributes over 71% of all sequencer revenue in Optimism Collective. The reason the mainnet contributes so much is not because of its rapid growth, but because it shares 100% of the profits, while Base only shares 2.5% or 15%.
Now let's look at the asymmetric payoff structure faced by OP holders:
If Base remains and grows: OP captures 2.5% of the gains. Base retains 97.5%.
If Base renegotiates to ~0.5%, OP will lose approximately 80% of its revenue from Base. Superchain's largest economic contributor will become insignificant.
If Base completely exits: OP will lose its economic engine overnight.
In all three scenarios, the upside is limited, while the downside could be unlimited. You hold a long position in a revenue stream, while the largest payer controls all the chips, including an exit option for the MIT protocol and a new token that could establish independent governance at any time.
The market seems to have already priced in the fact that "Base's growth will not effectively benefit OP holders." However, we believe it has not yet priced in the exit risk—that is, the possibility that Coinbase will use BASE tokens as leverage to renegotiate the terms, or worse, gradually and completely withdraw from Superchain governance.
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