The Optimism Foundation, the organization behind the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Optimism, has announced a private sale of approximately 19.5 million of its governance tokens. Currently valued at around $4.62 each, the total value of the tokens sold is estimated to be about $90 million. However, it should be noted that the sale comes with a two-year vesting period, which means that the buyer is prohibited from selling the tokens before that time. During this period, the buyer can still use the tokens for governance participation. The tokens being sold are part of the unallocated portion of the OP token treasury, which accounts for 30% of the initial OP token supply and forms part of the organization’s original working budget. The Optimism Foundation has assured the community that the OP tokens will be sent in multiple transactions over the next few days, and that these transactions were planned and are not unexpected. The details of the sale and the buyer have not been disclosed, as it was a private transaction. This has led to some discussions within the community, with some expressing concerns about the lack of transparency, while others argue that the Optimism team needs to generate revenue. It is worth noting that this is not the first time Optimism has conducted a private sale of its tokens, as a similar sale was conducted in September 2023.
$90M worth of tokens successfully sold in private deal, boosting optimism