OP Labs, the lead developer firm supporting the Optimism ecosystem, has laid off 20 employees as part of an internal restructuring aimed at sharpening the organization’s strategic focus, according to a message shared by the group’s management.
In a post on X, OP Labs CEO Jing Wang said the decision followed internal discussions with affected employees and was communicated to employees before it was made public. The company said the layoffs were driven by a need to “narrow our focus” rather than financial constraints.
“This is not about finances,” she said in a Slack message she shared with her post. “OP Labs is well capitalized with years of runway.”
Instead, she suggested the move was aimed at streamlining decision-making and “doing fewer things … exceptionally well.”
The OP token has fallen around 3% over the last 24 hours.
OP Labs plays a central role in the development of Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling network designed to make transactions faster and cheaper by processing activity from the Ethereum main chain. The wider Optimism ecosystem now includes several high-profile chains built on its technology stack, including Coinbase’s Base, Uniswap’s Unichain and Sony’s Soneium.
CoinDesk contacted OP Labs for comment and to clarify the percentage of staff that were laid off.
Read more: Optimism’s OP token falls after Base moves away from network ‘OP stack’ in major technology shift
