Optimism new proposal weakens council power over standalone chains
Optimism has published a governance proposal that would allow qualifying transfers of upgrade authority from its Security Council to standalone chains with only 30 days' public notice.
The proposed policy, published November 5, 2026, would affect chains whose upgrade authority currently rests with the Council under Optimism's Charter. It would allow a Chain Governor to request that control transfer to a specified address, enabling the chain to manage upgrades independently or through a third party.
Once a transfer is executed, the chain would lose its Standard Rollup status and users would rely on the security model of the new upgrade key holder. The Security Council would no longer retain practical ability to enforce Charter policies on that chain through upgrade authority.
Transfer Process
A governor would first submit a request to the Optimism Foundation, which would verify its validity and compliance with the governor's commitments. The Foundation would then publish notice on the Governance Forum, identifying the chain, its Chain ID, and material layer-1 contract addresses, while warning that the chain would cease to be a Standard Rollup.
The Security Council would need to wait at least 30 days from publication before executing the transaction. During this period, the Council should verify that the Foundation published the notice, the minimum period has elapsed, and the recipient address matches the one supplied by the Foundation.
Governance Changes
A transfer meeting the approved policy's conditions would need no additional Optimism Governance approval. That would remove the need to seek a separate vote for each handover.
Under the proposed policy, qualifying transfers would proceed without requiring additional governance approval after the Foundation notice and minimum wait period. This would eliminate the need for a separate vote for each handover, streamlining the process while maintaining transparency.
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