Optimism (OP) Token Briefly Crashes After Rumors of a Multisignature Wallet Hack Spread on Twitter

The native token for Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Optimism briefly crashed in price on Wednesday after Twitter-based rumors spread that its multisignature wallet had been hacked.

Optimism's native token crashed briefly on Wednesday evening after rumors spread on Twitter that the layer 2 blockchain's multisignature wallet had been hacked.

However, Optimism's core team said there was no hack. But the OP token did fall by 10% in a matter of minutes at 5:15 p.m. ET, CoinMarketCap data showed, before rebounding.

On Discord, the team later clarified that the fund movements were actually preplanned Coinbase Custody-related transfers to investor wallets. The funds transferred were worth about $450 million, according to Etherscan data.

"We're seeing some confusion about recent transfers of OP out of a multisig. This is expected—today we executed a series of planned standard transfers to the Coinbase Custody wallets of various investors in OP Labs PBC."

– Optimism (✨?_?✨) (@optimismFND) August 17, 2022

The hasty response appeared to send the token's price movement in the opposite direction, with the token last rebounding off its low of $1.27 to $1.34, which was still slightly below its pre-crash level.

Following the flash crash, Optimism said it "expected" some "confusion" around the unannounced fund transfer.

"We will announce large planned transfers ahead of time to avoid further confusion going forward," it also said on Twitter.