a16z, the "Secretive" Fund, Injects Additional $90 Million into Optimism (OP)

a16z, the investment fund believed to be involved in the private sale round, purchased 19.5 million OP tokens from Optimism back in March 2024.

According to sources from Unchained Crypto, the mysterious investment fund has allocated $90 million to acquire an additional 19.5 million tokens of OP Mainnet/Optimism (OP) in March 2024, confirming it as Andreessen Horowitz, a well-known name in the crypto sphere and Silicon Valley's tech community.

As reported by Coin68 earlier in March, Optimism conducted an emergency token sale using 19.5 million OP tokens from its treasury to undisclosed buyers. These tokens will be locked up for two years, with the buyers authorized to delegate tokens for governance activities.

This information has sparked ongoing debates within the Optimism community as unilateral project management decisions were made during private sales without input from OP holders, posing threats to the project's decentralization. In September 2023, Optimism previously sold 160 million OP tokens (approximately $162 million at that time) to seven investment funds.

Representatives from both a16z and Optimism declined to comment on the information published by Unchained Crypto.

Sources from Unchained Crypto affirm that a16z remains highly optimistic about Optimism's long-term prospects, especially with its Superchain strategy, encouraging other crypto projects to build blockchains on the OP Mainnet platform using the OP Stack toolkit.

Projects confirmed to utilize OP Stack for developing Layer-2 solutions include Celo, WorldChain by Worldcoin, Ancient8, Zora Network, opBNB by BNB Chain, Base by Coinbase, Aevo, Fraxtal by Frax, Mode Network, Manta Pacific, Farcaster, DeBank Chain, among others.

In March 2022, a16z led a $150 million Series B funding round for Optimism in collaboration with another major fund in the industry, Paradigm. Previously in February 2021, a16z participated in Optimism's $25 million Series A funding round.

In addition to financial support, a16z is also involved in developing infrastructure for Optimism through client rollups named Magi.

Despite ongoing market corrections in the cryptocurrency market as of the night of April 30 and morning of May 1, 2024, OP remains unaffected, fluctuating within the $2.2 - $2.7 price range. However, considering a16z's $90 million investment for 19.5 million OP tokens in early March, the token's price has since decreased by nearly 45%.