What Optimism token unlock means for OP holders

• About $39.62 million worth of OP will be unlocked later this week.
• Network activity on the Optimism blockchain has been impressive of late.

On 29 July, Optimism [OP] would unlock 3.56% of its entire supply, making it the biggest token unlock of the week. For context, token unlocks occur when a project releases a certain amount of assets that were previously locked or restricted from circulation in the crypto market.

Read Optimism’s [OP] Price Prediction 2023-2024

And according to Token Unlocks, this supply would be worth $36.92 million. Typically, these tokens are usually held by project developers or early investors. And when released, they can significantly impact liquidity in the market. 

OP is in the spotlight

With the upcoming unlock, Optimism has gained a significant share of the market’s social dominance.

Social dominance calculates the share of discussions around a cryptocurrency compared to the share other assets in the market have. Although the metric is similar to the market cap dominance, it, however, an asset’s social volume by the entire market cap social volume.

At press time, Optimism’s social dominance was 2.743%. Sometimes, this can be an indicator of a market rebound. And this could be seen in OP’s 24-hour trading volume, which rose to $190.50 million.

However, social dominance was not the only metric with a noticeable increase. Like the metric, OP’s development activity increased to 35.24.

The development activity describes the commitment rate of developers to a project. When the metric increases, it means that public GitHub repositories connected to a project have risen. 

But when the development activity falls, it means that there have only been little scores of code commits.

Source: Santiment

Bulls have also been unlocked 

Furthermore, the 30-day active addresses also increased. When considering the active addresses, on-chain data considers addresses that have participated in sending and receiving tokens via a network.

So, the hike in active addresses means that a lot of wallets have been involved in transacting over the Optimism blockchain.

In terms of circulation, Santiment showed that unique OP tokens used during the last seven days have reduced. But as the token unlock nears, the number of OP tokens in circulation could increase.

Source: Santiment

Additionally, it seemed that traders were bullish on the OP price action based on the funding rate. 

According to Coinglass, OP’s funding rate was in positive territory. Funding rates are periodic payments made between long and short traders that hold perpetual contracts.

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When the funding rate is negative, it means that shorts are paying a funding fee to long-positioned traders. 

But when it’s positive, it implies that longs are paying a funding fee to shorts. As it stands, traders are bullish on the OP price action.

Source: Coinglass