Optimism’s million-dollar OP sale sparks backlash: Impact on price?

• The Optimism Foundation is set to sell 19.5 million OP tokens.
• OP has remained in the $4.6 price range.

The Optimism [OP] Foundation recently disclosed a multimillion-dollar sale of OP. Nevertheless, this announcement faced opposition from certain holders. Did this impact OP’s price movement?

Optimism discloses private OP sales

As per a recent announcement by Optimism, the Foundation is set to sell 19.5 million OP tokens, valued at approximately $89.7 million at the time of this writing.

The announcement outlines that these tokens will be under a two-year lockup period. However, holders retain the option to delegate tokens to independent third parties for governance votes.

The project said that these tokens originate from the unallocated segment of the OP token treasury and form part of the Foundation’s initial working budget, comprising 30% of the initial OP token supply.

This marks the Foundation’s second disclosure of a private token sale in recent months. It had a prior sale of 116 million OP tokens in September 2023, amounting to a value exceeding $160 million at that time.

Optimism holders express displeasure with the sale

Following the Optimism Foundation’s announcement of the private sale, it garnered negative reactions, notably from The Daily Gwei founder Anthony Sassano.

Sassano expressed dissatisfaction, citing a perceived lack of transparency from the Foundation. This sentiment arose due to the Foundation’s inability to disclose the terms and purchaser details.

Another user shared a similar opinion, sarcastically stating that it can’t be considered a dump if it’s a private sale, implying a sly disposal of the Foundation’s OP holdings.

How did OP react?

An analysis of Optimism on a daily timeframe revealed no adverse reactions following the Foundation’s announcement. The chart indicates that by the end of trading on 7 March, OP increased by 2.57%, reaching around $4.6.

Source: Trading View

 Realistic or not, here’s OP market cap in BTC’s

However, at the time of this writing, it was trading with a slight 1% decline, hovering around $4.6. It’s important to note that this decline is unrelated to the recent foundation announcement.

Furthermore, OP continued to exhibit a strong bull trend, as indicated by its Relative Strength Index (RSI) data.Tthe RSI line was slightly above 70, placing it in the overbought zone at press time.