Optimism price outlook as network sells 116 million OP tokens

Optimism (OP) network has revealed plans to start selling 116 million OP tokens in a private sale immediately. At current rates, these tokens are valued at approximately $162.4 million but the transfer is not expected to impact market price.

Also Read: Optimism airdrop distributes 19 million OP tokens to more than 31,000 addresses

Optimism enters a private token sale

Optimism, a strong contender in the Layer-2 (L2) space for the best Ethereum network and rivaling against Arbitrum (ARB), is selling 116 million OP tokens privately. The sale began on September 20. The news follows an official announcement to community members, indicating that the tokens will be distributed to seven buyers for  the network’s treasury management.

Noteworthy the sale is not expected to impact Optimism price, at least not for now, because the recipients are not expected to book profits immediately. Specifically, the sale will be private, likely between wallets directly. Even after the sale, the entire bucket would be locked for a period of two years. While in lock-up, the buyers would be allowed to distribute the tokens to unaffiliated intermediaries, giving them a voice on governance matters.

Another reason why the transfer is not expected to influence price is that the 116 million tokens will not be sourced from the circulating supply. Instead, it will come from the portion that remains in the treasury and therefore unallocated. According to the network, this is all part of an original plan and is provided for in its “original working budget of 30% of the initial of token supply.”

Notably, this is not the first of such sales, as there was another one earlier in September where the L2 network moved 130 million OP tokens directly to wallets also for treasury management reasons.

It is also worth mentioning that there is an ongoing airdrop with OP tokens totaling 19.4 million (valued at approximately $26 million at current rates) up for allocations. Up to 31,870 addresses will receive these tokens on merit that they took part in delegation activities of Optimism Collective, the network’s DAO.

The airdrops are a strategy to increase engagement on the L2 network and reward user participation.

One user has lauded the foundation for keeping the community involved in matters as intrinsic as internal transfers. The individual, going by OPUser, highlights that this transparency explains the level of interest other DAOs have expressed toward the Optimism network, looking to learn and build around it.