Enterprise Optimism Strategy Amid the Trust Crisis in the Superchain

Although Base’s departure has significantly impacted the Optimism market, the assumption that the superchain model has completely failed is premature. This event actually opens an important dialogue about how public blockchain infrastructure must be economically sustainable, and how Optimism, through its enterprise initiatives, is trying to find solutions.

The Base Surprise and Market Reaction

On February 18, 2026, Base—Coinbase’s largest Layer 2 network—announced plans to transition from the OP Optimism stack to a proprietary, independent architecture. This decision includes integrating a sequencer component and reducing reliance on third parties like Optimism, Flashbots, and Paradigm. Base’s engineering team stated that this change would increase the annual hard fork frequency from three to six, accelerating innovation cycles.

The market’s immediate and harsh reaction: OP tokens dropped over 20% within the first 24 hours. When the largest chain in the superchain ecosystem announced its departure, market tension was palpable. Simultaneously, Steven Goldfeder, CEO of Offchain Labs, posted a warning on X: models that enable early adoption without real economic contribution will ultimately face this dilemma.

Two Contrasting Layer 2 Economic Visions

Optimism Model: Accelerating Adoption Through Full Openness

The OP stack is fully open source under the MIT license with no restrictions. Anyone can access, modify, and launch their own L2 chain without royalties. Revenue contribution is only activated when a chain joins the official Optimism superchain ecosystem, requiring a contribution of 2.5% of total chain revenue or 15% of net revenue (fees minus layer 1 gas), whichever is higher.

In return, superchain members share governance, security, native interoperability, and branding support. The logic is simple: if dozens of L2 chains grow on top of the OP stack, network effects will increase the value of the OP token and the entire ecosystem.

This strategy has led to impressive adoption. Coinbase (Base), Sony (Soneium), Worldcoin (World Chain), and Uniswap (Unichain) all chose the OP stack. The main reason: the MIT license offers maximum flexibility, and the modular architecture allows components like execution layer, consensus layer, and data availability layer to be replaced independently.

However, structural weaknesses are clear: low entry barriers also mean low exit barriers. OP-based chains have minimal economic obligations to the Optimism ecosystem, and the more profitable independent operation becomes, the more rational it is to transition out.

Arbitrum Model: Conditional Revenue Coordination

Arbitrum employs a more complex approach. For L3 chains settled on Arbitrum One or Nova, there are no revenue sharing obligations. But chains settled outside the Arbitrum ecosystem (whether L2 or other L3s) are required to contribute 10% of net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum DAO—8% to the DAO treasury, and 2% to the Arbitrum Developers Association.

This structure, described by Goldfeder as a “community code source,” is a third way between fully open source and exclusive licensing. The code remains transparent, but commercial use outside the ecosystem must contribute. The Arbitrum DAO has collected around 20,000 ETH from fee economics and Timeboost MEV auctions.

This design creates real exit costs for chains seeking independence, ensuring ongoing revenue flow. Robinhood, which recently announced an L2 on Orbit, achieved 4 million transactions in its first testnet week—validating that Arbitrum’s value proposition (customizability and technological maturity) can attract institutional adoption despite fee obligations.

Lessons from Open Source Monetization History

The tension between rapid growth and sustainability is not unique to blockchain. The traditional software industry has faced similar dilemmas.

Linux and Red Hat: Linux is the biggest open source success—GPL-licensed kernel fully open, with penetration in servers, cloud, embedded systems, and Android. Yet, successful commercial companies built on it, like Red Hat, generate revenue not from the code itself but from services: technical support, security patches, enterprise guarantees. Red Hat was acquired by IBM in 2019 for $34 billion. Free code, paid services—paralleling OP Enterprise launched by Optimism on January 29, 2026.

MySQL and dual licensing: MySQL split its strategy into two tiers—an open source version under GPL, and a separate commercial license for monetization. This concept resembles Arbitrum’s community code source. MySQL’s success was complicated when Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, leading to the fork of MariaDB by original creator Monty Widenius. Forking always poses a risk in open source—directly parallel to the Base-Optimism situation.

MongoDB and cloud giants’ resistance: MongoDB adopted the Server Side Public License (SSPL) in 2018 to address a pressing problem: Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud used MongoDB code for managed services without paying. The pattern of “value extraction without compensation” recurs in open source history.

WordPress and the paradox of network effects: WordPress is fully GPL, powering about 40% of websites worldwide. Automattic earns revenue from WordPress.com hosting and plugins, not from the core platform—structurally similar to the Optimism superchain. This model is successful, but the “free-riding” problem has never been fully solved. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg publicly criticized WP Engine for generating significant revenue from the ecosystem without equivalent contribution. The paradox: those who benefit most from an open ecosystem contribute the least—dynamics identical to Optimism and Base.

Why Blockchain Sharpens This Tension

Three factors make this dilemma more acute in blockchain infrastructure.

Tokens as amplifiers: In traditional open source software, value is distributed—Linux’s success doesn’t mean a specific asset’s price rises or falls directly. Blockchain tokens reflect incentives and political dynamics of participants in real time. Free-riding in traditional software appears gradually as development resources diminish. In blockchain, departure of key participants triggers immediate, visible outcomes: token price crashes. OP’s 20%+ drop in a day shows this—tokens are both a health barometer and crisis amplifier.

Financial infrastructure is not ordinary software: L2 chains manage tens of billions of dollars in assets. Maintaining stability and security requires ongoing substantial investment. Successful open source projects rely on corporate sponsors or foundation funding for maintenance costs. Most L2 chains struggle to sustain their ecosystem operations. Without external contributions via revenue sharing, development and infrastructure maintenance resources are at risk.

Ideological tension: The crypto community has a strong tradition that “code must be free.” Decentralization and freedom are core values tied to industry identity. In this context, Arbitrum’s fee-sharing model may trigger community resistance, while Optimism’s open model is ideologically appealing but economically challenged.

OP Enterprise Strategy and Optimism’s New Positioning

In response, Optimism is not standing still. On January 29, 2026, they officially launched OP Enterprise—a enterprise-level service for fintech corporations and financial institutions. This service supports deploying production-grade chains within 8-12 weeks, with infrastructure maturity guarantees.

Although the original OP stack is licensed under MIT and can always transition to a standalone mode, Optimism assesses that most teams are not blockchain infrastructure experts. For them, partnering with OP Enterprise is a more rational choice.

Base has stated that during the transition period, they will continue core service support for OP Enterprise and maintain compatibility with OP stack specifications. This separation is technical, not relational—aiming to preserve ecosystem coherence even as the technical architecture diverges.

Arbitrum Model: Between Theoretical Design and Actual Revenue Flows

On the other hand, Arbitrum’s community code source model also faces a gap between ideal and operational reality.

In fact, about 19,400 ETH accumulated in the Arbitrum DAO treasury mostly comes from sequencer fees on Arbitrum One and Nova, as well as Timeboost MEV auction revenues. Revenue sharing from ecosystem chains via the Arbitrum Expansion Plan has not yet been confirmed at a public scale.

Structural reasons exist: the Arbitrum Expansion Plan itself was only launched in January 2024, and most Orbit chains are built as L3s on top of Arbitrum One—they are exempt from fee-sharing obligations. The most prominent independent L2 chain qualifying for the plan—Robinhood—is still in testnet stage.

To make the community code source model truly meaningful as a “sustainable revenue structure,” the ecosystem must wait for major L2 chains like Robinhood to launch mainnet, and for revenue sharing from the Expansion Plan to actually flow. Asking external DAOs for 10% protocol revenue is not trivial for large corporations—Robinhood’s continued choice to work with Arbitrum demonstrates value in other dimensions: customization potential and proven tech maturity. But the economic viability of this model remains unproven.

Conclusion: No Truly Free Public Infrastructure

Base’s departure is a tangible impact on Optimism, but generalizing that the superchain model has failed is an overreach. The key is not which model is “right,” but understanding the trade-offs each presents.

Optimism’s open model enables rapid ecosystem growth but risks the departure of its biggest beneficiaries. Arbitrum’s forced contribution model builds a sustainable revenue structure but raises the initial adoption threshold. Both approaches are points along a spectrum between “fully open” and “fully enforced,” differing mainly in degree and scope, not essence.

The key forward: honest dialogue about who bears the costs of this infrastructure. OP Labs, Sunnyside Labs, and Offchain Labs have hired world-class research talent committed to expanding Ethereum while maintaining decentralization. Without sustainable investment in development, progress in L2 scalability is impossible, and funding must come from somewhere.

There is no truly free public infrastructure anywhere in the world. As a community, our duty is not blind loyalty or instinctive dismissal but to initiate honest conversations about the sustainable economics of the layers that advance blockchain adoption and security. The Base-Optimism crisis could serve as a crucial catalyst for this dialogue.