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Over $740 million in tokens to unlock in the next 30 days
Over 40 crypto protocols such as Arbitrum, Optimism, Starknet, Aptos, will unlock large quantities of tokens, previously restricted to prevent early investors and team members from selling en masse.
The two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ether, have fallen about 4% over the past seven days. However, tokens with the highest unlocks in the next 30 days saw a larger decline over the same period.
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Posted June 17, 2024 at 7:28pm EST.
Over 40 crypto protocols are collectively unlocking over $740 million in previously frozen tokens over the next 30 days.
According to data from the vesting analysis platform Token Unlocks, the release of tokens for several cryptocurrencies is planned. Leading the pack is XaI’s XAI token, with a staggering $109 million in tokens unlocked. Closely followed by Aptos’ APT token at $85 million and Arbitrum’s ARB token at $80 million.
Other notable mentions include Immutable’s IMX token at $53 million, OP Mainnet’s OP token at $61 million, and Sui’s SUI token at $58 million. Starknet’s STRK token and Ethena’s ENA token are also part of the mix, with unlocks valued at $52 million and $37 million, respectively.
“This cycle was marked by token with low float and high FDVso tokenomics design and the unlock program are critical to a project’s success,” Decentral Park Capital portfolio manager Kelly Ye wrote in a message to Unchained on Telegram. “When a great unlock meets a power of modest purchasing, the impact on prices will not be positive for the long-term success of a project.”
Token unlocks work similarly to a traditional company’s stock vesting schedules in that they allow for the gradual release of cryptocurrencies and prevent early investors from immediately dumping them in substantial quantities.
Falling harder than BTC and ETH
Token unlocks occur frequently. The upcoming ones will come after services network Oracle Pyth unlocked $736 million worth of tokens and layer 1 blockchain network Avalanche released approximately $369 million in circulating supply last month.
“Although unlocks create pressure on token sales, the actual impact depends on market sentiment, trading volume and token-specific cases,” Ye added. “The market tends to anticipate large unlock events and may price in the price impact before the unlock occurs.”
The two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ether, have fallen about 4% over the past seven days. However, the number of tokens that will be unlocked in the next 30 days has decreased the most. XAI, the cryptocurrency with the largest unlock, is down 20% over the past week, while STRK is down around 27% over the same period. Among the tokens mentioned above, the one that had the smallest price drop was APT at 8.4%, followed by ARB, down 8.9% over the course of seven days, CoinGecko data shows.