Kraken Picked Optimism's 'Superchain' After Getting a Pile of OP Tokens

• Crypto exchange Kraken announced last week that it will build a layer-2 network atop Optimism's OP Stack blockchain framework.
• The deal was reached early this year, involving a grant of 25 million OP tokens, at the time worth roughly $100 million.

Kraken, a major U.S. crypto exchange, shared last week that it would launch a layer-2 called Ink, relying upon the Optimism's blockchain ecosystem's OP Stack framework – and become part of the fast-growing "Superchain" that also includes layer-2 networks from the crypto exchange Coinbase along with the electronics giant Sony and decentralized exchange Uniswap.

But there was a price: Both projects have confirmed to CoinDesk that the Optimism Foundation agreed to provide grants to Kraken in the amount of 25 million OP tokens – worth roughly $100 million earlier this year, when the deal was struck, and now valued at about $42.5 million.

The deal, which was finalized around January or February, paved the way for Kraken to use Optimism’s OP Stack, a customizable toolkit that lets users create their own layer-2 rollups based on Optimism’s technology.

Kraken clarified with CoinDesk that under the deal, the token allocation would be paid to Kraken in grants over a time period. On Jan. 1 , the OP token was worth $3.99, according to CoinGecko, reaching a high of $4.06 on Feb. 20 during that time period. It now trades around $1.70.

The Optimism Foundation confirmed the number of tokens involved in the deal and declined to comment further.

According to Andrew Koller, founder of Ink, the number is similar to various other deals that are part of the Superchain ecosystem.

“And it was actually Optimism that proposed that number first, and it was very in line with what other Superchain participants have gotten,” Koller told CoinDesk in an interview.

Optimism's growth

Layer-2 networks have been popping up all over the Ethereum ecosystem over the past year. Crypto exchange Coinbase famously launched their Base layer-2 network in August of 2023 with OP Stack. Since then, decentralized exchange Uniswap shared that it would launch a layer-2 on OP Stack called Unichain, and electronics giant Sony shared it was also coming out with a layer-2 called Soneium based on Optimism’s technology.

AI pioneer Sam Altman’s blockchain project, World, known for its controversial iris-scanning orbs, went live with its layer-2 Worldchain in August, also built on OP Stack.

In a series of posts on X after CoinDesk published this story, the Optimism Foundation's chief growth officer, Ryan Wyatt, wrote that the deal included "5M OP to help fund the engineering efforts for Ink, 20M for massive txn milestones to drive fees to the Collective."

"The Collective is not going to stop investing in developers," Wyatt added.

According to Koller, the grant with the Optimism Foundation is based on transactions per month, “each time you achieve one, then there's different tranches that get unlocked, and there's an initial unlock, and then the rest gets unlocked at each month.”

Base has a slightly different setup, being one of the first in the space under this program. Base disclosed in a blog post in August 2023 that it would receive up to 2.75% of the OP token supply over a six-year period. The total supply of OP tokens is currently close to 4.3 billion, which makes Base eligible to receive up to 118 million OP tokens.

For newer layer-2s in the Superchain, “it's just like a time-lock thing. And after them [Base], I think all Superchain participants are really driving that around activity,” Koller said.

Paid deals

Deals between layer-2 projects and big firms are not unheard of in the blockchain industry. In 2022, Polygon paid Starbucks $4 million in grants to build an NFT-powered loyalty program. The program was shuttered 18 months later.

At the time of the Starbucks deal, Polygon was led by Wyatt, who was ousted in 2023, according to a CoinDesk report. Wyatt joined the Optimism Foundation in November 2023, where he is the chief growth officer, in charge of onboarding more developers to build across the Optimism ecosystem.

“There's no blueprints of this stuff, so you're gonna make good decisions and bad decisions in this space. There's not a lot you can lend at,” Wyatt told CoinDesk in an interview this week, conducted before CoinDesk learned about the Kraken deal.

Read more: Kraken Picks Optimism for New Layer-2 Network, Joining Coinbase's Base on 'Superchain'

UPDATE (15:34 UTC): Adds comments from Optimism Foundation's Wyatt, from posts on X.