Optimism, a leading Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, has recently announced its intention to conduct a significant token sale, involving the transfer of 116 million OP tokens to seven private buyers. The transaction, valued at approximately $159 million, aims for treasury management purposes within the organization.
Despite concerns regarding potential market impact, the sale is expected to have minimal effect on OP token prices. This is due to its private nature and the sourcing of tokens from the unallocated segment of the OP token treasury, ensuring there is no alteration in the circulating supply.
The sale’s specifics reveal that the involved tokens are bound by a two-year lockup period, prohibiting their sale on secondary markets within that timeframe. Nevertheless, the buyers are granted the capability to delegate these tokens to third parties not affiliated with them for governance actions. This strategic move aligns with Optimism’s pre-established financial strategy, consuming 30% of the initial token supply as outlined in its budget.
Although the sale terms and buyer identity have not been disclosed, the tokens are subjected to a two-year lockup period. This arrangement includes an option for the buyer to delegate the tokens for governance voting purposes.
This announcement comes shortly after Optimism revealed details of its third airdrop. In this event, over 31,000 addresses involved in delegation activities related to Optimism’s decentralized autonomous organization, the Optimism Collective, received a total of 19.4 million OP tokens. Additionally, the Optimism Foundation, supporting the Optimism project, has engaged in a private sale of around 19.5 million governance tokens, translating to over $89 million in value.
Optimism’s approach to token management and sales has sparked varied reactions within the Ethereum community. Comments from individuals such as Anthony Sassano, founder of The Daily Gwei, express discontent with the lack of transparency surrounding these private sales. Despite these criticisms, the OP token price has experienced a nearly 3% increase in the past 24 hours, indicating a robust market response.
The broader context sees Optimism, alongside other layer-2 solutions such as Polygon and Arbitrum, as critical to the Ethereum ecosystem’s scaling efforts. Despite being second to Arbitrum in terms of total value locked, Optimism has shown a significant transaction volume surpassing the former in August. This surge was partly attributed to heightened activity from Coinbase’s sandbox and the Worldcoin identity verification project.
