The Optimism Foundation's Year 4 budget update and Year 5 outlook, published Aug. 6, project circulating OP supply reaching 2.504 billion tokens by April 2027 — roughly 343 million more than today. The same update shows Year 4 spending falling sharply and leaves two supply figures unreconciled.
Optimism's Year 4 budget update and Year 5 outlook, published Aug. 6, project circulating OP supply reaching 2.504 billion tokens by April 2027. That equals 58.3% of the token's 4.295 billion total supply. The Foundation's own numbers imply roughly 343 million OP could enter circulation between May 2026 and April 2027. Crypto Briefing puts that unlock at about 15% of OP's current circulating supply.
The math doesn't fully add up
The listed Year 5 categories — a 200 million OP Ecosystem Fund allocation, 47.6 million for early core contributors, 15.3 million for investors and 10 million from the Governance Fund — total only 272.9 million OP, leaving 70.1 million OP the Foundation doesn't identify. A second gap complicates the picture: the budget post lists 2,160,975,703 OP in circulation as of Aug. 6. Optimism's own public tracker showed 2,286,467,356 OP the same day, a gap of roughly 125.5 million tokens the Foundation hasn't explained.
Year 4 spending slows, Retro Funding stays paused
Optimism made about 150 million OP in new commitments during Year 4, roughly one third below the 229.92 million OP committed in Year 3. Governance Fund releases tied to the program fell 53% to 13.4 million OP, while Retro Funding releases dropped 30% to 14.2 million OP. No user airdrops occurred. The Foundation suspended Retro Funding for at least 12 months after its final Season 7 mission payments. Crypto.news reports 777.6 million OP, or 90.5% of the program's original allocation, remains available for possible future rewards.
Buybacks trail the unlock by a wide margin
Governance approved a 12-month program directing 50% of eligible Superchain revenue toward monthly OP purchases. By Aug. 6, the initiative had acquired more than nine million OP, an amount that remains well below the 343 million OP the budget projects entering circulation. The purchased tokens sit in the Collective treasury, and governance has yet to decide whether they will be burned or redeployed.
The Foundation called its own Year 5 figures directional estimates subject to adjustment, and it plans to publish the next annual budget update by June 2027. Until then, the 2.504 billion circulating supply endpoint is a forecast, not a reconciled unlock schedule.
Sources: crypto.news, Crypto Briefing
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