Reading a Token’s Unlock Schedule

A token unlock schedule is a calendar of when locked supply becomes transferable, and it is the only forward-looking supply data most projects publish. Read against circulating supply, a token unlock schedule tells you how fast the float grows; read on its own, it tells you almost nothing.

The distinction matters because unlock tables are usually presented as raw token counts, and a number like 40 million means something very different against a float of 200 million than against one of 2 billion. This article covers the allocation buckets behind the calendar, the difference between unlocked and sellable, and the arithmetic that turns a vesting table into a monthly dilution rate you can actually compare across projects.

• The schedule is a supply input, not a price signal. It says how many tokens can move, never how many will be sold.
• Dilution is relative to float. The same monthly tranche is a rounding error for one token and a double-digit inflation rate for another.
• Unlocked is not the same as sellable. Lockups, staking, vesting cliffs and market depth all sit between the two.
• Post-unlock selling is concentrated. A small number of holders usually decide whether the tranche reaches the market at all.

What a token unlock schedule actually measures

An unlock schedule measures the rate at which restricted supply becomes liquid. Most projects start with a fixed total supply and release it over years according to allocations agreed before launch: a team share, an investor share, a treasury, an ecosystem fund, and a public distribution. Each has its own start date, cliff and release shape.

The schedule is a commitment, not a mechanism. Nothing in the token contract forces a holder to sell on the unlock date, and nothing prevents an early holder from lending, hedging or transferring the economic exposure before the tokens move. What the calendar gives you is the maximum supply that could reach the market in a given month, which is the right input for a supply model and the wrong input for a forecast.

Cliffs, linear vesting, and unlocked versus sellable

Most schedules combine a cliff with a release curve, and the two behave differently in the float.

What a cliff does

A cliff is a period during which nothing vests. A twelve-month cliff followed by twenty-four monthly tranches means the first tokens arrive a year after the vesting start, and the float steps up on that date rather than drifting. Cliffs create discrete events, which is why they attract attention: the supply change is visible in a single day.

What linear vesting does

Linear vesting releases a fixed amount per period, so the float grows steadily. Individually, each step is small; cumulatively, a 36-month linear release can add more than the entire initial float. Because nothing dramatic happens on any single day, linear inflation is easy to underestimate.

Why unlocked is not the same as sellable

An unlocked token may still be unsellable in practice. Team allocations are often subject to voluntary lockups, market-making agreements or disclosure rules. Large holders may be unable to sell size without moving the price, which is a constraint the calendar does not show. The gap between “can move” and “will move at this size” is where most unlock analysis is either right or lazy.

An unlock date is when tokens become movable, not when they move. The calendar tells you the supply that could arrive; the holders decide whether it does.

The arithmetic: inflation rate, not unlock size

The useful number is monthly dilution as a percentage of circulating supply, not the absolute size of the tranche. Take a token with a total supply of 1,000,000,000, a circulating supply of 250,000,000 and twelve monthly tranches of 30,000,000 beginning next month.

Dilution rate first

The first tranche adds 30,000,000 to a float of 250,000,000, which is 12 percent inflation in a month. By the end of the year the float is 250,000,000 plus 360,000,000, or 610,000,000: a 144 percent increase in circulating supply in twelve months, with the monthly rate falling as the denominator grows but staying above 5 percent throughout.

Now attach a price. Assume 0.40 per token, so the market capitalisation is 100,000,000 and the fully diluted valuation, price times total supply, is 400,000,000. If a quarter of each tranche is sold within thirty days, that is 7,500,000 tokens a month, or 3,000,000 of sell pressure at that price, roughly 100,000 a day. Against daily volume of 2,000,000 that is 5 percent of turnover — absorbable. If three quarters of the tranche is sold, the same arithmetic gives 9,000,000 a month, about 300,000 a day, or 15 percent of volume. Same schedule, three times the pressure, and the calendar shows neither number.

How to read a token unlock schedule in six steps

1. Find the total supply and the circulating supply from the project’s own documentation, and check whether circulating excludes locked or treasury tokens.
2. List every allocation with its start date, cliff and release shape, rather than accepting a single aggregate curve.
3. Convert each tranche to a percentage of the float for that month, not a token count.
4. Build a twelve-month table of monthly additions so cliffs appear as spikes rather than averages.
5. Mark which buckets have holders likely to sell: investor funds with fixed fund lives behave differently from a treasury controlled by the project.
6. Compare monthly additions against average daily volume to estimate how much of the tranche the market can absorb without a discount.

Why a schedule is not a forecast

A schedule describes supply; price is set by supply meeting demand, and demand is not in the table. A large unlock into a market with rising demand can pass without visible effect, while a modest unlock into a thin book can dominate the tape for weeks. The ratio that matters is tranche size against liquidity, and liquidity is the number the calendar never includes.

Announcement effects also arrive before the event. Holders who expect supply often reduce exposure in advance, so the visible move may happen weeks early and the unlock date itself may be quiet. That pattern is common enough to plan around, but it is a tendency, not a rule, and depends on how widely the schedule was known.