Polychain sells remaining $62.5 million TIA stake to Celestia Foundation ahead of staking reward changes
Quick Take
- Crypto VC firm Polychain Capital sold its remaining TIA stake to the Celestia Foundation for $62.5 million, the foundation announced Thursday.
- The stake will be reassigned to new investors with a new rolling unlock schedule lasting from August to November.
- Polychain had come under criticism for its significant sales of liquid TIA staking rewards from locked token allocations.
- A forthcoming Celestia network upgrade, Lotus, will lock staking rewards proportional to the overall token lockup schedule.
Crypto venture firm Polychain Capital has offloaded its stake in Celestia, the Celestia Foundation announced Thursday, marking a significant exit by one of the modular blockchain network's most prominent early backers.
The Celestia Foundation repurchased $62.5 million worth of TIA tokens from Polychain, the VC firm's entire remaining holdings, according to the foundation's announcement. The sale was priced at about $1.44 per TIA token, around where it traded at the beginning of July. The foundation will now reassign those tokens to new investors, subject to a new rolling unlock schedule commencing Aug. 16 and completing on Nov. 14.
TIA is down about 5.2% on the day at around $1.86, according to The Block's Celestia price page. The token hit an all-time high near $20 in early 2024.
Polychain's sale comes after the VC firm was criticized by some crypto investors for its large-scale sale of liquid TIA staking rewards — despite its initial token allocation remaining locked. One onchain analyst suggested in early July that Polychain may have sold up to $242 million worth of TIA since its token generation event, with roughly $179 million from staking reward addresses, from an estimated $20 million initial investment across Celestia's Series A and B fundraises.
In response to the criticism, Celestia's forthcoming v4 mainnet upgrade, titled "Lotus," will introduce changes to the handling of staking rewards, alongside other improvements such as lowering issuance and enabling direct TIA interoperability for rollups. Following the upgrade, estimated to launch by the end of the month, staking rewards will be locked in proportion to the unlock schedule of the underlying tokens.
Put simply, a vesting wallet with 50% of tokens still locked will only be able to claim around 50% of the staking rewards from those tokens. For accounts with delayed vesting, both the locked tokens and staking rewards will remain locked until the unlock date.
The Celestia Foundation declined to comment. Polychain Capital could not immediately be reached for comment by The Block.
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