OP Labs cuts roles in restructuring to ‘narrow focus’ on core priorities

OP Labs, the main 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 leadership.

In a post on X, CEO of OP Labs Jing Wang said the decision followed internal discussions with affected staff and was communicated to employees before being disclosed publicly. 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 alongside her post. “OP Labs is well capitalized with years of runway.”

Instead, she suggested that the move was intended to streamline decision-making and “do fewer things … exceptionally well.”

The OP token is down roughly 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 off the Ethereum main chain. The broader 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 reached out to OP Labs for comment and to clarify the percentage of staff that was laid off.

Read more: Optimism’s OP token falls after Base moves away from the network’s ‘OP stack’ in major tech shift