Key Takeaways:
Ink, the Kraken-incubated Ethereum L2, moved its production infrastructure to Optimism's OP Enterprise Fully Managed under a multi-year agreement, with applications on the network generating close to $40 million in annual revenue.
"Programmable financial infrastructure is becoming the foundation of how institutions build onchain, but operating that infrastructure requires a different set of expertise," Optimism Chief Executive Officer Jing Wang said in a statement. "By working together, the Ink Foundation can focus on growing the ecosystem while Optimism focuses on operating and improving the network."
Under the deal, Optimism assumes full operational responsibility for Ink's infrastructure, including its sequencer, batcher, proposer and supporting systems, with a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee. Ink retains ownership of its chain, product strategy and applications. The network processed more than 1 million transactions in its first 24 hours after mainnet launch in December 2024, and applications on the chain now generate close to $40 million in annual revenue, according to the projects.
Ink will also serve as a design partner for OP Enterprise, helping shape features including programmable block building, one-day withdrawals to Ethereum and sequencer-level compliance tooling. The deal positions Optimism as a managed infrastructure provider for exchange-linked networks, following Bitpanda's Vision Chain which became the first OP Enterprise Fully Managed deployment earlier this year.
Running a blockchain in production is a "unique operational challenge," Ink Foundation Head of Strategy Zach Le said, adding that the foundation chose Optimism because it built the stack Ink runs on. The arrangement allows Ink's team to direct resources toward ecosystem development and new financial products while Optimism handles reliability, security and network performance.
Optimism has spent 2026 refocusing around enterprise infrastructure, betting that exchanges, fintechs and financial institutions increasingly want their own chains but do not want to run blockchain infrastructure themselves. The managed service includes 24/7 monitoring and service-level agreements typical of cloud providers rather than crypto protocols.
Kraken previously received a multi-tranche OP token grant of about 25 million tokens from the Optimism Foundation to support Ink's development. The Fully Managed tier now ensures long-term operational support for the network.
The deal comes as usage across major optimistic rollups has pulled back from 2025 highs, with active addresses declining from nearly 3 million a year ago to under 600,000 in recent weeks, according to The Block's data dashboard.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
