OP Labs, the developer behind Optimism, has laid off 20 employees to streamline internal processes and reduce costs. This was announced by the company's CEO, Jing Wang.

Today we shared difficult news with the OP Labs team.

Our priority was to communicate with the impacted people & give the team time to process the news before sharing publicly. This decision reflects a narrowing of our focus, not our runway.

I’m sharing the note I sent to the… pic.twitter.com/rJThhlcFaw

— Optimist Prime (@jinglejamOP) March 12, 2026

According to a screenshot from a group chat with 102 participants, the layoffs affected 19.6% of the staff.

"This is not about finances. OP Labs is well-capitalized, and we have a buffer for years to come. It’s about doing fewer things but doing them well, making decisions faster, and reducing coordination costs," Wang stated.

She did not specify which positions were affected but encouraged recruiters to consider the former employees. Wang described them as "talented engineers, operators, and developers who helped shape Optimism into what it is today."

Transition Period

Optimism is a key Layer 2 solution for Ethereum, with a total value locked (TVL) exceeding $1.5 billion at the time of writing. The project has also reached its first stage of decentralization (Stage 1).

Source: L2BEAT.

The OP Stack technology stack serves as an open foundation for creating customizable blockchains, including the L2 network Base from Coinbase. In mid-February, the developers of the solution announced their transition to a proprietary architecture for independent development, which added pressure on Optimism.

In the past month, the price of the native OP token has dropped by 36.7%. As of now, the coin is trading around $0.11.

Hourly chart of OP/USDT on Binance. Source: TradingView.

Shifting Narrative

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that as the main network scales, the relevance of Layer 2 solutions diminishes. He noted that rollups are decentralizing more slowly than expected.

He advised developers not to replicate Layer 1 but to seek unique niches: privacy, specialized applications, non-financial scenarios, and ultra-high speed.

As a technical foundation, he proposed a "native precompile for rollups"—an integrated protocol mechanism for verifying ZK proofs.

Representatives of Layer 2 networks acknowledge the need for evolution. However, players like Offchain Labs insist that Ethereum's mainnet still cannot match Layer 2 solutions in terms of throughput.

Optimism's Plans

Despite the challenges, Optimism has a clear roadmap for 2026. One of its main goals is to accelerate block formation times.

What Optimism is shipping in 2026:

→ Even faster blocks
→ More economic parameters
→ Continuous upgrades
→ Native interoperability
→ Custom compliance controls
→ Actions SDK
→ ZK proof systems pic.twitter.com/XNm99PDWVq

— Optimism (@Optimism) February 25, 2026

Developers also plan to:

  • implement native interoperability between networks;
  • develop compliance mechanisms for different jurisdictions;
  • launch ZK proof systems compatible with Ethereum's quantum-resistant roadmap.

In March, the Ethrex team, in collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation and L2BEAT, presented code and documentation for a working environment for native rollups.