OP Labs, the leading development company supporting the Optimism ecosystem, has laid off 20 employees as part of an internal restructuring aimed at refining the organization’s strategic direction, according to a message shared by the group’s leadership.
In an article on X, OP Labs CEO Jing Wang said the decision followed internal discussions with affected staff and was communicated to employees before being publicly disclosed. The company said the layoffs were driven by the need to “restrict our scope” rather than financial constraints.
“It’s not about finances,” she said in a Slack message she shared alongside her post. “OP Labs is well capitalized with years of experience.”
Instead, she suggested the move was about streamlining decision-making and “doing fewer things… exceptionally well.”
The OP token is down around 3% in the last 24 hours.
OP Labs plays a central role in the development of Optimism, a layer 2 Ethereum scaling network designed to make transactions faster and cheaper by processing activity outside of the Ethereum main chain. Optimism’s broader ecosystem now includes several high-profile chains built on its tech stack, including Coinbase’s Base, Uniswap’s Unichain, and Sony’s Soneium.
CoinDesk has reached out to OP Labs for comment and clarification on the percentage of employees being laid off.
Read more: Optimism’s OP token falls after Base moves away from network’s ‘OP stack’ in major tech shift
