Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Optimism has announced a new airdrop of OP tokens worth $26 million to active governance participants. 

This airdrop tagged Airdrop 3 marks the third round and will distribute 19.4 million OP tokens to 31,000 unique addresses. The developers aim to boost engagement on the Optimism network by rewarding users for participating.

Optimism Rewards Active Users With Airdrops To Bolster Network Engagement

Optimism had earlier held two rounds of airdrops. The first round, Airdrop 1, started on June 1, 2022, and allocated 200 million Optimism tokens to 250,000 early network adopters and active users. The second round, Airdrop 2, distributed over 11 million OP tokens to 307,965 unique addresses, rewarding users and governance participants.

The Optimism team took snapshots of user addresses on January 20, 2023. According to the announcement, eligible addresses received the airdrop tokens directly on February 9, 2023.

However, only 166 million of the allocated tokens for Airdrop 1 reached the eligible claimant addresses.  Later,  Optimism DOCS revealed that on September 15, the remaining addresses eligible for the unclaimed Airdrop 1 OP tokens finally received them. The above information suggests that all OP tokens from Airdrop 1 were duly distributed to the claimant addresses.

According to blockchain data, about 25% of eligible user addresses did not participate in the airdrops for some reason. However, Optimism is determined to reward every committed user on its network, hence the third airdrop round.

Releasing 19 Million Tokens To Users

The third round, Airdrop 3, aims to compensate those users and governance participants who missed the initial airdrops. Airdrop 3 started on Monday, September 18, at 18:10 UTC and eligible recipients are addresses that have delegated their OP tokens’ voting power between January 20 and July 20, 2023.

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It bears mentioning that previous Optimism airdrops had six criteria for eligibility. Two criteria are for OP Mainnet users and focus on early adopters and active users. However, the remaining four criteria are for L1 Ethereum and target positive-sum governance participation and active contribution and participation.

According to information on OP governance DOCS, each category is distinct. That means an address can qualify for multiple airdrops and receive a sum of tokens accordingly.

Optimism is Ethereum’s second-largest Layer 2 scaling solution by total locked value (TVL). Also, a Dunes dashboard shows that Optimism has a TVL of $829.56 million, with over 1.522 million total users and 11,909 daily users. The data suggests that the OP network has recorded a 2.53% increase in TVL over the past 24 hours.