Wintermute Sells OP Tokens Ahead of Optimism’s Token Unlock

The next token unlock of Optimism (OP) is scheduled on Wednesday, but, reportedly, the market maker Wintermute has already dumped over 27% of its stash.

In most cases, token unlocks turn out to be a bearish event. This is because a large number of locked tokens enter the circulating supply. Hence, Wintermute has started booking profits ahead of OP’s token unlock.

Wintermute Dumped Over $10M Worth of OP Tokens

According to on-chain analyst Spot On Chain, Wintermute booked $4.67 million in profits from its OP token holdings. The decentralized finance (DeFi) market maker made a return on investment of 78.39% by selling 5.9 million tokens.

Spot On Chain says that Wintermute was one of the Series B investors in Optimism. And it accumulated 21.31 million OP tokens for $21.49 million from Binance and Coinbase at an average buying price of $1.01. 

Lastly, after dumping over 27% of its holdings, the DeFi platform still owns 15.3 million OP tokens worth $23.23 million.

Upcoming Unlock

BeInCrypto reported the token unlock for Optimism is scheduled for May 31st. According to TokenUnlocks, 9% of the total supply worth $587 million will be released in circulation.

Later on, the project will follow a linear vesting schedule until May 2027. 

Due to unlocks, some community members are “expecting a huge price dump.” As of writing, the OP token is trading at $1.52, down by about 6.26% in the past 24 hours. It has a market capitalization of $509.6 million and ranks 90th.

Got something to say about Optimism token unlocks or anything else? Write to us or join the discussion on our Telegram channel. You can also catch us on TikTok, Facebook, or Twitter.

For BeInCrypto’s latest Bitcoin (BTC) analysis, click here.