How do crypto treasuries turn tokens into the dollars they need without crashing the price?

Bills in dollars, treasury in tokens

Lesson 1 showed the mismatch: the bills are in dollars, but much of a treasury may be in tokens.^5,6 Sooner or later, some tokens have to be sold. ENS DAO's 2026 policy, for example, says money for operating costs should come from stablecoins, and that selling ETH should be avoided unless the stablecoins run short.⁷

How a treasury sells matters, because a large sale can move the price against the seller. Module 18 explains why, with order books and pools.⁴

Selling in one go, with a limit

In February 2023, ENS DAO approved a proposal, first posted in January, to sell 10,000 ETH for USDC, to cover 18 to 24 months of operating expenses.^1,8 The swap was set up with a price check that limited slippage to 2%.¹ Slippage is when a trade's final price differs from the price you were quoted.⁹ Uniswap Labs notes the trade-off: a tight limit keeps prices close but makes a failed trade more likely.⁹

ENS later said this sale raised about $16.2 million in USDC.²

Selling in pieces: TWAP

A TWAP order (time-weighted average price) splits a large order into a series of smaller limit orders that trade at fixed intervals.⁴ CoW Protocol, which offers them, says this lowers price impact, and lets the seller set the lowest market price they will accept.⁴ If the price is below that floor, that part does not trade. Each part can only fill during its own time slot, so a part that misses its slot goes unsold.^4,10,11

In January 2025, ENS DAO voted on a plan to sell 6,000 ETH for USDC: 1,000 ETH at once, then 5,000 ETH over three months in 90 parts, about 55.6 ETH each.² KPK, the endowment manager that ran the sale, said three months seemed a good balance given "high ETH historical volatility of ~60%".²

What actually happened

The plan estimated about $20.4 million, at $3,200 per ETH.² KPK's updates on the forum tell a different story:^2,11

• February 2025: the first 1,000 ETH sold at an average of $2,787.66.²
• May 2025: the three-month TWAP ended with only 2,111 of the 5,000 ETH sold, at an average of $2,423, because ETH traded below the TWAP's limit price of $2,062.²
• In total, 3,111 ETH had raised 7.9 million USDC, and 2,889 ETH were still unsold. KPK said it would start a new TWAP.²
• June 2025: KPK reported that a second 20-day TWAP, with the same $2,062 limit and started on 16 May, sold the remaining 2,889 ETH at an average of $2,568. In all, the 6,000 ETH raised 15.32 million USDC between 7 February and 4 June 2025, against the plan's estimate of about $20.4 million.^11,2

The floor did its job: it stopped sales below $2,062, and the rest sold once the price recovered. But the sale took almost a month longer than planned and raised about $5 million less than the January estimate, because ETH had fallen. Spreading a sale protects against selling too cheaply, and leaves you exposed to the price falling while you wait.^2,11,4

Selling privately, with a lock-up

Another route is a private sale to chosen buyers. In September 2023, the Optimism Foundation said it had sold about 116 million OP tokens privately to seven buyers, "for treasury management purposes".³ The tokens had a two-year lock-up, meaning the buyers could not sell them for two years.^3,12 In March 2024 it sold about 19.5 million OP the same way, and said the terms and the buyer could not be disclosed.¹³

A private sale avoids selling into the open market at once. The trade-off is that holders may not learn the price or the buyer.¹³

Watching the unlock calendar

A treasury can only sell tokens that are unlocked, and other holders watch the same dates. Module 13 explains unlocks and vesting. With shares, the SEC's investor site warns that prices may drop in anticipation of locked-up shares being sold when a lock-up ends.¹² The Optimism Foundation publishes a public tracker of the OP supply.¹³

Some organisations also pay people partly in their own token. The Uniswap Foundation, for example, reports employee token awards in UNI separately from its operating expenses.¹⁴