Kraken’s Ethereum Layer 2 chain, Ink, is outsourcing its entire production infrastructure to Optimism under a multi-year agreement. The deal makes Ink one of the highest-profile adopters of Optimism’s OP Enterprise Fully Managed tier, a service that launched in January 2026 and represents the protocol’s shift from open-source toolkit to professionalized managed service provider.
What the deal actually looks like
Under the OP Enterprise Fully Managed arrangement, Optimism assumes full operational responsibility for Ink’s infrastructure. That includes 24/7 monitoring and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, the kind of service-level agreement you’d expect from a cloud provider, not a crypto protocol.
Ink keeps economic ownership and roadmap control. The Ink Foundation’s stated priorities now shift entirely to ecosystem growth, user acquisition, and developing new financial products.
Ink launched in late 2024 as Kraken’s answer to the L2 race, designed to offer fast and low-cost trading alongside DeFi experiences. The chain is built on Optimism’s OP Stack, making it a natural candidate for this kind of managed service upgrade rather than trying to maintain custom infrastructure internally.
