Here’s why Optimism price jumped 9%: Can OP reach $0.18?

Optimism (OP) has surged 9.17% to $0.1511 over the past 24 hours, extending its weekly gains to 25.47% as Uniswap prepares to move Unichain’s production operations to Optimism through OP Enterprise.

According to CoinGecko, OP recorded approximately $232.25 million in daily trading volume, with its market capitalization reaching $348.33 million. The rally followed Uniswap’s October 9 announcement that Unichain would move its production infrastructure to OP Enterprise, with the mainnet migration scheduled for October 29. The token briefly approached $0.1625 before retreating toward $0.15.

Optimism price rises as Unichain prepares for migration

Optimism attracted renewed buying interest after Uniswap confirmed plans to transfer Unichain’s infrastructure operations to OP Enterprise. The transition will place responsibility for network operations, including sequencers, monitoring and transaction access services, with Optimism.

The market reaction pushed OP toward $0.1621 during the latest trading session, representing a temporary increase of nearly 20% from its earlier daily levels. However, the token surrendered part of those gains as selling pressure emerged near $0.16.

The latest CoinGecko snapshot placed OP at $0.1511, up 9.17% over 24 hours and 25.47% over the past week. Its circulating supply stood near 2.3 billion tokens, supporting a market valuation of approximately $348.33 million.

Earlier market observations recorded a 30-day gain of approximately 64%. Despite the recent recovery, OP remained roughly 68% below its price from a year earlier and 97% below its historical peak.

Trading volume increased alongside the rally. Earlier reports placed daily turnover near $226 million, approximately 128% above the previous session, before the supplied CoinGecko snapshot showed volume reaching $232.25 million.

The rally coincided with Uniswap’s announcement, although the available trading data does not establish how much of the price increase came directly from the planned migration.

Meanwhile, several major cryptocurrencies struggled as OP gained ground. NEAR Protocol fell roughly 4.7%, while Hyperliquid (HYPE) declined 1.7%. Bitcoin (BTC) slipped 0.20% to around $83,491, while Ethereum (ETH) rose approximately 1% to $2,503. Zcash (ZEC) gained 6.30% to $1,270, and Cardano (ADA) edged up 1% to $0.2364, according to CoinGecko data.

Unichain will move to OP Enterprise on October 29

Uniswap announced the migration on October 9, confirming that Unichain would adopt OP Enterprise to prepare for native communication between networks built on the OP Stack.

The rollout schedule identified October 13 for testnet migration and October 29 for mainnet migration. Uniswap’s announcement describes the dates as planned milestones, with the mainnet transition still pending as of October 14.

Through OP Enterprise, Optimism will operate Unichain’s production infrastructure. Its responsibilities include running sequencers on mainnet and testnet, providing remote procedure call services, monitoring network performance and responding to operational incidents.

Sequencers organize blockchain transactions before they are submitted for settlement. RPC services allow applications and wallets to communicate with the network, while monitoring systems help operators identify technical problems.

Uniswap confirmed that the transition would preserve Unichain’s existing chain ID, smart contracts, balances and applications. Deployments of Uniswap v2, v3 and v4 will remain unchanged.

For users, the company stated, “nothing changes.” Unichain will continue operating as a Stage 1 rollup with permissionless fault proofs, while contract upgrades remain subject to Optimism Governance and the Security Council.

The migration is intended to prepare Unichain for native interoperability across networks using the OP Stack. Once the feature becomes available, users are expected to transfer supported assets, beginning with ETH, between participating chains without using a separate bridge.

Uniswap has not announced a specific date for the activation of those native transfers. The October 29 migration therefore should not be treated as confirmation that cross-chain functionality will become immediately available.

Unichain already operates on technology developed within the Optimism ecosystem. Its February 2025 mainnet launch introduced an Ethereum layer-2 network built using the OP Stack.

The network began operating after several months of testing, during which its developers reported processing more than 100 million transactions.

Optimism price faces resistance near $0.16

While the announcement supported renewed market interest, the daily chart showed OP encountering selling pressure after reaching an intraday high near $0.1625.

The supplied technical analysis placed the token at $0.1524 after opening at $0.1586, representing a 3.85% decline within that daily candle. This differs from CoinGecko’s rolling 24-hour increase because the measurements cover different periods.

Despite the intraday pullback, Optimism remained above four closely watched exponential moving averages. Its 20-day EMA stood at $0.1345, followed by the 50-day EMA at $0.1223 and the 100-day EMA at $0.1160.

The 200-day EMA was positioned at $0.1422, below the latest market price. Trading above that longer-term average suggested an improvement in OP’s technical structure following months of weakness.

However, the recent rejection near $0.1625 left immediate resistance between $0.16 and $0.1625. A sustained recovery above that region could bring $0.17 into focus, followed by $0.18 if buying pressure strengthens.

On the downside, the 200-day average near $0.1422 remains an important support level. A decline below it could expose the 20-day EMA at $0.1345, followed by the 50-day EMA at $0.1223.

The Relative Strength Index stood at 60.40, above its moving average of 56.36. The reading indicated positive momentum, although it remained below the conventional overbought threshold of 70.

An RSI reading above 50 generally indicates stronger upward momentum, while readings above 70 can suggest that an asset is becoming overbought. OP’s current position leaves room for additional gains, but the indicator does not guarantee a continued rally.

If the token remains above $0.1422, the latest technical structure would continue to support a potential retest of $0.16. Failure to hold that level would weaken the recovery and increase attention on lower moving averages.

Optimism has expanded its role across OP Stack networks

Optimism’s involvement in Unichain follows earlier efforts to expand the services available to networks built with its blockchain technology.

In January 2026, Optimism governance approved a proposal to allocate 50% of net Superchain sequencer revenue to OP token buybacks during a one-year trial.

The proposal received 84.4% approval from participating voters and established monthly token purchases beginning in February. Repurchased tokens are held in the Optimism treasury, with their future use subject to governance decisions.

The arrangement links part of the ecosystem’s operating revenue to OP purchases, although Uniswap’s latest announcement did not disclose any new revenue-sharing terms or projected income from the OP Enterprise migration.

The OP Stack already supports several Ethereum layer-2 networks. Unichain joined that group when its mainnet launched in February 2025, while other deployments have included networks developed by Coinbase and World.

Earlier this year, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit partnered with Optimism on blockchain infrastructure designed for its own operations. The arrangement involved the OP Stack and a self-managed deployment model, allowing the exchange to control key infrastructure components.

For Unichain, the immediate next milestone remains its October 29 mainnet migration. Uniswap’s published schedule identifies Optimism as the operator of the production sequencers, RPC infrastructure, monitoring systems and incident response services following the transition.