Base exclusively earns 70% of the revenue but only pays 2.5% in fees, risking centrifugal force for Superchain

Key Points

The Coinbase-backed Base chain contributed approximately 71% of Superchain’s sequencer revenue in 2025, yet only paid 2.5% of the earnings to Optimism Collective—meaning Coinbase earned 28 times the value of its contribution. More critically, the OP Stack uses the MIT open-source license, giving Coinbase the freedom to fork at any time. Currently, Base remains within the alliance only through “soft constraints”—once the BASE token is issued and gains independent governance rights, this bond will become purely nominal.

Revenue Distribution Imbalance: Design Flaw or Structural Trap?

When Optimism initially reached an agreement with Base, it was assumed that no single chain would dominate the economic ecosystem. Revenue sharing was based on the higher of “2.5% of chain revenue” or “15% of on-chain profit,” a framework that was reasonable for a diversified rollup system.

But reality has slapped the designers in the face.

In 2025, Base generated $74 million in chain revenue, accounting for over 71% of OP’s total sequencer fees, yet paid only about $1.85 million to Optimism. This means Coinbase is effectively footing the bill for the “cohesion” of the Superchain—contributing 100% of the mainnet’s profit to sustain the ecosystem, while the largest revenue contributor pays the smallest share.

By October 2025, Base’s TVL surpassed $5 billion, growing 48% in half a year, becoming the first Ethereum L2 to cross this threshold. These numbers are still rising.

Ironically, the $34 million+ treasury accumulated from Superchain fees in the Optimism Collective remains largely unused. The envisioned “fee subsidies for public goods → public goods promote ecosystem → ecosystem generates more fees” flywheel has never truly spun. Current RetroPGF and ecosystem grants are still supported by new OP token issuance, not actual income from the treasury.

Base’s participation in Superchain governance also reveals issues. Since the release of the “Base Participation in Optimism Governance Declaration” in January 2024, there have been no public actions—no proposals, no forum discussions, no visible governance involvement. As the chain contributing 70% of the economic value, Base is conspicuously absent from shared governance.

For a publicly listed company responsible to shareholders, immediate costs outweigh future potential value on paper. The ultimate question: does Coinbase still have economic incentives to maintain the status quo?

No Barriers to Technology: “Exit Options” under MIT License

This is the legal reality of Superchain relationships: OP Stack is a public good under the MIT license, freely forkable, cloneable, and deployable by anyone worldwide without permission.

The only “soft constraints” keeping chains like Base within the Superchain are shared governance participation, coordinated upgrades and security, ecosystem funds, and the legitimacy of the Superchain brand. These constraints only matter when Base needs to obtain something it cannot build on its own from Optimism.

But Base is proving it is building independence. In December 2025, Base launched a cross-chain bridge directly to Solana, using Coinbase’s own infrastructure instead of relying on Superchain’s interoperability solutions. This indicates Base is unbound.

Once the BASE token gains governance rights, these “soft constraints” become purely ceremonial. Coinbase could tomorrow launch a token with full governance over the Base protocol, and Optimism’s only countermeasure would be political pressure—and that’s already less effective.

Imagine what Coinbase would lose if they forked: governance participation in Optimism, Superchain branding, channels for coordinated upgrades.

And what they would retain: full ownership of the $5 billion TVL, all users, and sequencer revenue exceeding $74 million annually.

The scales are unbalanced.

Negotiations Have Already Quietly Begun

In September 2025, Base announced at BaseCamp that it was “beginning to explore” a native token issuance. The wording is key—this is the standard phrasing used by every L2 6-12 months before launching a token.

Jesse Pollak cautiously added that there are “no concrete plans yet” and Coinbase “does not intend to announce anything soon.” Until late 2024, Coinbase still stated there were no plans to issue a Base token. This shift signals that the landscape of L2 token competition has already changed.

More importantly, the token’s positioning. Pollak described it as “a powerful lever to expand governance, ensure developer incentives are aligned, and open new design avenues.” These are not neutral terms—protocol upgrades, fee parameters, ecosystem grants, sequencer selection—these are precisely the areas currently governed by the Superchain.

A BASE token with governance rights would overlap with OP governance. The key question: if BASE holders vote on protocol upgrades, whose decision takes precedence? If BASE has its own grant program, why wait for RetroPGF? If BASE controls sequencer selection, what power remains for the 2/2 multisig?

Optimism governance cannot prevent Base from issuing overlapping governance tokens. The “Law of Chains” does not restrict chain governance from using its own tokens for whatever purpose.

More critically, the constraints of a publicly listed company. This will be the first token issuance led by a public company. Coinbase owes fiduciary duties to COIN shareholders, and any token distribution plan must demonstrate it can enhance enterprise value.

This changes the game. Coinbase cannot airdrop tokens merely for community goodwill. They need a structure that can boost COIN’s stock price. One possible approach: leverage the BASE token to renegotiate lower revenue sharing in the Superchain, increase Base’s retained earnings, and ultimately improve financial statements.

Re-Negotiation More Likely Than a Public Fork

The strongest argument against this is: Coinbase is a public company, with a brand positioned as compliant and cooperative, and forking just to save a few million dollars would seem petty and damaging to its image. This is a serious point.

Superchain does provide real value. Its roadmap includes native cross-chain communication, with all Ethereum L2s reaching a peak TVL of $55.5 billion by December 2025. Base benefits from composability with OP mainnet, Unichain, and others. Giving up this network effect has costs.

And then there’s the $118 million OP grant. Optimism offered Base the opportunity to secure about 118 million OP over six years to solidify a “long-term alliance.” When the protocol was agreed upon, its value was roughly $175 million.

But the key is that a more likely path is not a public, hard fork, but a gentle re-negotiation. Coinbase could leverage the BASE token as a bargaining chip within the Superchain to secure more favorable terms. This negotiation probably wouldn’t even make it into governance forums.

Base has already become independent of Optimism’s interoperability plans, using CCIP to build its own bridge to Solana. When you’re solving problems yourself, the “shared upgrade and security” soft constraint matters less.

And the voting rights for that $118 million grant are limited to less than 9% of the voting supply. This is not deeply bound, but a minority stake with limited power. Coinbase cannot control Optimism with 9%, and Optimism cannot control Base with it either.

At current prices (~$0.32), the total grant value is about $38 million. If re-negotiation causes OP to drop 30% (market correction of Base’s revenue expectations), Coinbase’s paper loss on this grant would be negligible compared to permanently reducing revenue share.

Reducing the 2.5% revenue share to 0.5% on $74 million+ annual income would save Coinbase over $1.4 million per year forever. In contrast, the OP grant’s impairment is about $10 million—a small number.

Institutional investors do not care about Superchain politics. They care about Base’s TVL, trading volume, and Coinbase’s profitability. A renegotiation of revenue share would not move COIN’s stock price—it would just appear as a routine governance update on the forum, slightly improving Coinbase’s L2 profit margins.

Market Pricing Is Wrong: Counterparty Risk Ignored

OP has plummeted 93% from its all-time high of $4.84 to about $0.32, with a circulating market cap of roughly $620 million. The market has clearly re-evaluated OP downward, but structural risks have not been fully digested.

Look at the divergence. Base’s TVL rose from $3.1 billion in January 2025 to over $5.6 billion in October’s peak. Base is winning; OP holders are not. Consumer attention has shifted to Base, and OP mainnet still lags in user activity.

Superchain appears like a decentralized collective, but economically it heavily depends on a single counterparty—who has ample motivation to renegotiate.

Now consider the asymmetric payoff structure faced by OP holders:

• If Base stays and grows, OP captures 2.5% of its revenue, while Base retains 97.5%.

• If Base renegotiates down to 0.5%, OP would lose about 80% of its revenue from Base. The largest contributor becomes insignificant.

• If Base fully departs, OP loses its economic engine overnight.

In all three scenarios, upside is limited, but downside could be unlimited. You hold a long position on a revenue stream, with the biggest payer holding all the chips—including an MIT license exit option and a new token that could establish independent governance at any time.

The market has already priced in “Base’s growth cannot effectively benefit OP holders.” But it has not yet priced in the exit risk—that Coinbase could leverage the BASE token to renegotiate terms or gradually detach from Superchain governance altogether.

That is the real risk.