Optimism will remove $90 million worth of tokens through private negotiations

Optimism Foundation – the organization behind the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Optimism – has announced a private sale of around 19.5 million management tokens.

Optimism (OP) tokens are worth about $4.62 on the market, and the number of tokens sold at the time of writing is about $90 million. While the foundation is offloading a large number of tokens, the announcement mentions that the sale covers a two-year period, barring the buyer from selling any tokens before then.

During the reservation period, Optimism Foundation stated that the buyer can still use the tokens for administrative participation. The Foundation wrote:

“During the lock-in, the buyer can transfer the tokens to other third parties to participate in management.”

The company also explained that the tokens are an “unallocated OP token treasury”. The foundation said these assets are part of the organization's original operating budget, which is 30% of the initial OP token supply.

The Foundation has informed the community that OP tokens will be sent in several transactions in the coming days. Optimism suggested that the community confirmed that these were planned transactions and that they were tokens sold in a private sale.

Related: $900M in Tokens Released in February

Because the transaction was private, Optimist did not disclose details of the sale or the buyer. This has sparked some discussion on X, with some looking at the sale negatively while others have defended the foundation.

Although Ethereum advocate Anthony Sassano likes optimism and has invested in it, a private sale without transparency leaves a “bad taste” in his mouth. Meanwhile, other community members argued that the group behind Optimism should also be managed.

This is not the first time Optimism has held a private sale of its tokens. On September 21, 2023, the network transferred 116 million OP tokens, worth about $160 million at the time, after a private sale.

At the time, some observers feared that the sale would negatively impact prices. However, the tokens were also locked for two years, meaning they did not immediately affect the value of the token.

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