Optimism, a scaling solution built on Ethereum, is set to unlock approximately $81 million worth of OP tokens on January 29, 2024, as reported by Token Unlocks.
Token unlocking events, common among crypto projects, involve gradually releasing reserved tokens to avoid potential market destabilization caused by sudden large-scale token liquidation. However, such events can sometimes trigger concerns about price volatility due to increased token supply.
Optimism’s upcoming unlock will distribute over 24 million OP tokens, constituting roughly 2.5% of the circulating supply, to project investors and core contributors. To date, the project has unlocked approximately 885 million tokens, representing 20.6% of the total supply.
Earlier this month, Optimism introduced its Canyon upgrade, the latest iteration after the Bedrock upgrade. Developed in collaboration with Base, Canyon aims to support the Shanghai and Capella hardforks while addressing minor bugs. Additionally, the project announced a $30 million token distribution to incentivize contributors who are instrumental in advancing the Optimism Collective’s mission.
According to CoinGecko, OP is currently trading at around $3, marking a slight decrease of over 2% in the past week, with a market capitalization of about $2.9 billion.