Optimism has sold 116M OP tokens for “treasury management purposes”. This is the only reason alot of these tokens exist

Not sure if many of you remember but Arbitrum had a bit of a controversy where it bypassed governance in the Arbitrum DAO to allocate 700M to the Arbitrum treasury. I think its important to understand what “treasury” means in crypto terms, especially after Optimism made this statement:

An update to the community:

Optimism has entered into a private token sale of approximately 116M OP tokens, split among seven purchasers, for treasury management purposes. The tokens are subject to a two-year lockup. During the lock-up, the purchasers will be able to delegate the tokens to unaffiliated third parties for participation in governance.

The tokens come from the unallocated portion of the OP Token treasury, and are part of the Foundation's original working budget of 30% of the initial OP token supply.

Starting today, there will be several transactions to send the OP. These are all planned transactions and we're sharing a heads up to keep the community informed.

Once again bypassing governance, this was another unilateral move by the founders to “manage the treasury” how they see fit. Diluting their token holders voting ability to new parties or likely just to get dumped upon token unlock.

Its important to keep in mind that things like L2s don’t intrinsically need a token (maybe MATIC because its a sidechain) but foundations will use it as a way of raising capital and gathering outside investment or simply enriching themselves. Chainlink also periodically releases statements broadcasting that more LINK has been sold for “sustainability”.

All this sell pressure inevitably falls onto retail. “Treasury management” typically happens behind closed doors and away from any community input. Be careful of these kinds of patterns, ask yourself what the real purpose of a token is before you buy it.