OP is generally under pressure: market analysis and technical outlook

Overall, the situation with Optimism (OP) is tense. Today, the token is experiencing significant downward pressure following Base’s announcement of transitioning from OP Stack to its own infrastructure. Let’s review what happened and what consequences this has for the project.

Base moves away from OP Stack — what happened

The Base team published a blog post about migrating their infrastructure from the OP Stack to a unified proprietary stack. The key change: future node releases will no longer come through the Optimism repository but directly from the Base repository. Essentially, this means that the largest client of OP Stack is taking full control of its tech cycle — releases, upgrades, packaging. Overall, this can be seen as an effort to achieve technological independence from the parent project.

Why the market is concerned: loss of revenue and influence

Market reaction was immediate. OP hit a new all-time low (ATL), and funding dropped to extremely low levels. What is the core concern for market participants?

Base was not just a client of OP Stack — it was a key showcase and economic driver for the entire ecosystem. According to available data, Base generated a significant portion of the revenue for Optimism among all L2 solutions on OP Stack. With Base’s departure, the flow of fees (and protocol income) will decrease. Additionally, there are fears that if the main client starts “detaching,” other Superchain participants might follow — a network of L2s including OP Mainnet, Unichain, World Chain, Soneium, and other projects.

Participants interpret this as a risk of reduced future cash flows and diminished platform influence of Optimism within its own ecosystem.

Buyback as a price support mechanism

However, Optimism has an instrument to support the token price. In January, the project launched a buyback program. The Optimism Foundation put forward a proposal, where 50% of incoming revenue from the Superchain would be allocated monthly to buy back OP. The vote passed successfully: 84.4% in favor. The pilot program lasts 12 months.

Overall, this is a market-understandable mechanism to support the price through increased demand for the token. Although with Base’s departure, the buyback amount will decrease, the support flow will not disappear entirely.

It’s worth noting that Base will continue working with Optimism as an OP Enterprise client — paid corporate support for large clients. This indicates that the quality and reliability of Optimism’s technology remain unquestioned.

Technical side: from wedge to consolidation

From a technical perspective, the situation is developing predictably and unhappily. In January, OP broke through our expected local “Bullish Wedge” — a formation indicating potential growth on the daily timeframe. The breakout occurred after the asset returned to a steady downtrend on January 25.

Currently, key price levels are identified, and an additional target from the weekly timeframe has been reached — $0.1410. This is exactly the minimum level from the dump on October 10, which was also broken. There are virtually no lower targets on the daily timeframe, as in the current coordinate system, they would be below zero.

This means one of two things: either a reversal from the bottom and recovery, or continued devaluation with more zeros after the decimal point.

On the 4-hour timeframe, two strong signals have already formed, offering chances for a rebound, but not guaranteeing it. Confirmation requires upward trends on smaller timeframes.

The price exited a global “Bullish Wedge” lasting a year and a half back in September, but since then, it has been consolidating at lows.

Two portfolios and liquidity expectations

On a personal level, OP is present in two of our portfolios.

The first — the main spot portfolio. It contains “free” tokens from the September 2022 spot deal, which closed with a profit of +139.53%. In late January 2023, we withdrew the main profit, leaving the core deposit for the long term. The position was closed at $2.243, bought at $0.945. Looking at the charts from that period, it seems incredible that altcoins once showed such movements — 138% in a few months.

The second — a copy portfolio of 19 assets, formed in October last year. Eight assets (including OP at $0.4414) were purchased after the October 10 dump. Overall, this portfolio is currently down -62.83%, with OP showing a decline of -68.12% from the entry price.

OP outlook: counting on inflow of quality liquidity

For both positions, the strategy remains unchanged — waiting for a full influx of liquidity into quality altcoins. Current lows are seen as potential accumulation points for long-term planning.

It’s important to understand that the overall situation with OP reflects broader challenges faced by the L2 segment: competition for liquidity, the need to prove long-term viability, and revenue generation. The unlock of 32.2 million OP, scheduled for February 28 (only 1.52% of market cap), adds short-term pressure but is not a decisive factor.

As of February 27, OP is trading at around $0.12, down 1.52% in 24 hours. The all-time high ($4.84) seems far away, but a long-term view on quality projects reveals potential at extremely low price levels.