When your money tree is ready to move itself at any time: The fragile truth of the Base and Optimism alliance

In the crypto world, some partnerships seem unbreakable but are actually built on quicksand. Today, I want to discuss the increasingly imbalanced transaction between $OP and Base.

Data is the coldest narrator. In 2025, Base contributed approximately 71% of the entire Superchain’s sequencer revenue, amounting to $74 million. However, the share paid to the Optimism Collective is firmly locked at 2.5%. This means Coinbase gains value that is 28 times what it pays.

Meanwhile, the price of the $OP token plummeted from a historical high of $4.84 by 93%, falling to about $0.32. Ironically, during the same period, Base’s total locked value increased by 48%, rising from $3.1 billion to over $5 billion. The market’s pricing has already told us: Base’s growth has not effectively translated to $OP holders.

But the market may overlook a more fundamental risk: exit. What keeps Base in the Superchain is not chains of iron, but a series of “soft constraints”—shared governance, branding, and future interoperability. Technically, the OP Stack uses the MIT open-source license, and Coinbase can fork it at any time without cost.

Currently, Base’s upgrades are controlled by a 2/2 multisig requiring approval from both Base and the Optimism Foundation. But this is not an insurmountable obstacle. An independently governed $BASE token could sever this connection entirely.

Optimism once gifted 118 million $OP tokens to Base in an attempt to bind long-term interests. But this grant’s voting rights are limited to 9% of the total supply. This is not a deep alliance but more like a minority stake with an “exit option.” If renegotiation causes the $OP price to fall, Coinbase might abandon this part of the book value in exchange for permanently canceling or reducing revenue sharing, which could be a financially sound move.

Governance participation reveals another side of the relationship. Base issued a governance participation declaration in early 2024, but since then, there have been no public proposals or forum discussions. As a member contributing over 70% of the economic value, its absence in governance is obvious. The so-called “shared governance” is currently more of a paper promise.

Where does the revenue flow? Sequencer revenue flows into the Optimism Collective treasury, which has accumulated over $34 million. But the key issue is: these funds have not yet been used or allocated. The current funding for public goods and ecosystem grants comes from the issuance of $OP tokens, not from ETH in the treasury. This undermines the core value proposition of joining the Superchain.

Base contributes about $1.85 million annually to this treasury, but the treasury has not provided direct economic returns to paid member chains. For a publicly listed company responsible to shareholders, continuously paying a fee with no immediate return weakens its credibility.

In September 2025, Base’s head Jesse Pollak announced they are “beginning to explore” issuing a native token. He described the token as a “powerful leverage” to expand governance and ensure aligned incentives. These words point to the current areas governed by the Superchain: protocol upgrades, fee parameters, and ecosystem grants.

If $BASE holders vote to upgrade the protocol, whose decision takes priority? If $BASE has its own grant program, why do Base developers still wait for Optimism’s RetroPGF? Overlapping governance rights could trigger fundamental conflicts.

Some might argue that Coinbase, as a publicly traded company, cares about reputation and wouldn’t fork just to save a few million dollars. But the real threat may not be an open rupture but a gentle renegotiation. Using $BASE tokens as leverage, they could negotiate more favorable terms within the Superchain—this negotiation might even go unnoticed.

Base has already demonstrated independence in action. In December 2025, it launched a cross-chain bridge directly to Solana, using its own infrastructure and Chainlink CCIP, rather than waiting for the Superchain interoperability solution. They are solving their own problems.

Ultimately, $OP holders are exposed to a huge asymmetrical risk. If Base stays and grows, $OP can only capture 2.5% of the revenue. If Base negotiates a split reduced to 0.5%, $OP’s income from Base would drop by about 80%. If Base fully exits, $OP would lose its economic engine overnight.

The upside is limited; the downside could be infinite. What you hold is a revenue stream heavily dependent on a single counterparty, which holds all the chips.