Optimism is a layer two protocol and smart contract platform that aims to enable low-cost and near-instantaneous Ethereum transactions. Is Ethereum ready for the next chapter? In this article we go through what is to come as well as how you may claim your optimism OP token airdrop.

The Optimism Collective

The Optimism Collective is a large-scale experiment in digital democratic governance, built to drive rapid and sustainable growth of a decentralised ecosystem, and stewarded by the newly formed Optimism Foundation.

OP token and citizen house
Image Credit: Optimism

The Optimism Collective will be governed co-equally by two houses:
– The Citizens’ House
– The Token House
Together, they will drive rapid, sustainable growth in Optimism, Ethereum, and the new internet.

The Citizens’ House will govern public goods funding, creating a flywheel of protocol development. Citizenship will be conferred as non-transferrable NFTs, and will grow over time with the community. The Citizens’ House will keep the network in check from any plutocratic capture.

The Token House is a token, called OP. OP is the token for the Optimism Collective that governs the Optimism L2 blockchain. OP is used to govern network parameters, treasury disbursements, and protocol upgrades creating incentives for projects and users in the Optimism ecosystem.

5.4% of the total token supply will be distributed to projects on Optimism over the next six months via governance.

OP airdrop eligibility
Image Credit: Optimism

Demand for OP

There have been a huge demand for OP airdrop and due to that, many users have been unable to claim.

Some users on Twitter have claimed that they were listed as eligible for the airdrop earlier, but are now shown as ineligible. Optimism tweeted that it is working to spin up additional server capacity before making an official announcement about the airdrop redemption process.

According to Optimism’s airdrop whitepaper, the first airdrop is intended to reward users who have been “instrumental as early adopters and active users of projects in the Optimism ecosystem”.

In total, almost 249k addresses are eligible to claim OP tokens in this initial airdrop.

As of present time, OP is currently being traded on various CEX namely OKX, Huobi, KuCoin, Bybit, MEXC, Gate IO and will be integrated into Binance in the near future.

Claiming Your Optimism Airdrop

Details about the qualifying criteria and tokenomics were released last month. Here’s how to claim:

Step 1: Check your eligibility over here

Optimism airdrop
Image Credit: The Defiant

Step 2: Add Optimism to your Metamask wallet. You can do so using Chainlist or your preferred method and connect to the network.

Optimism Chainlist
Image Credit: The Defiant

Step 3: Should you be eligible, you will be able to claim your OP tokens after completing a few steps.

Optimism airdrop quiz
Image Credit: The Defiant

You will need to answer three questions, accept the Working Constitution and delegate your tokens before claiming your airdrop.

Delegate OP tokens
Image Credit: The Defiant

OP Token

OP is currently trading for $1.81 according to CoinGecko with a market cap of almost USD $857M.

OP price
Image Credit: CoinGecko

OP is valued at USD $9B according to a report by Messari which would make Optimism a top 20 coin during launch. We also found a dune analytic dashboard if anyone is interested in the stats for the Optimism’s new OP token here.

Image Credit: Dune Analytics

Conclusion

Optimism outlined that there will be not just one airdrop, but an entire season of airdrops. In light of this, it’s possible that the amount of ETH locked on Optimism will grow as users interact with the protocols built on the network in hopes of receiving subsequent OP airdrops.

According to a chart of the token allocations, there is still a further 14% of OP supply that will be given out in the future.

Optimism OP allocation
Image Credit: Optimism

If Optimism’s token launch is successful in driving more users to its network, it would definitely put pressure on other L2s like Arbitrum to follow suit. Regardless, as the battle of L2s on Ethereum wages on, it will only spur the Ethereum ecosystem for higher traffic and activity. The result of more ETH being staked will reduce selling pressure compared to the rest due to a lesser supply in the market.

[Editor’s Note: This article does not represent financial advice. Please do your own research before investing.]

Featured Image Credit: Chain Debrief

Read More: Layer-2 Rollups: Who’s Winning The Fight To Scale Ethereum?