Emissions, Cliffs, and Vesting

What you'll learn

• The Schedule Is the Story
• Linear Vesting
• Cliffs and Cliff+Linear
• Milestone-Based and Performance Vests
• Tracking Unlocks: Token Unlocks, CryptoRank, Messari
• The Supply Overhang Problem (2024-2026)

Key terms

Token Generation Event (TGE)

The moment a token is launched and first becomes tradeable. The TGE float is the percentage of total supply that is liquid at this moment, typically 5-15% for major 2023-2025 launches.

FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation)

The market cap a token would have if all tokens (including unvested insider allocations) were currently circulating. FDV vs. circulating market cap is the primary indicator of supply overhang risk.

Float

The portion of a token's total supply that is currently liquid and tradeable. Low-float launches with high FDV are a primary structural risk in 2024-2026 token markets.

Cliff

A period during which no tokens unlock, followed by a sudden release on the cliff date. Common structures are "1-year cliff then linear" or "2-year cliff then linear," borrowed from Silicon Valley equity vesting.

Linear vesting

Tokens unlock continuously over the vesting period. If 100M tokens vest linearly over 4 years, recipients accrue roughly 274,000 tokens per day from day one.

Milestone-based vesting

Vesting tied to specific events (mainnet launch, TVL threshold, DAU target, price milestone) rather than calendar dates. Better incentive alignment but harder to design without gameable metrics.

Supply overhang

The pressure created when large insider allocations are scheduled to unlock into a market that cannot absorb them at current prices. The defining tokenomics issue of 2024-2026 for high-FDV-low-float launches.

Token Unlocks

The leading public dashboard (token.unlocks.app, run by CryptoRank) tracking vesting schedules for 1000+ tokens with daily unlock calendars and dollar values at current market prices.

Unlock pressure

The dollar value of insider unlocks over the next 30-180 days divided by average daily trading volume. A ratio above 1 implies near-certain price compression unless exogenous demand absorbs the new supply.

Unlock-adjusted FDV

Analytical framework that discounts the headline FDV by expected dilution-driven price compression over 12-24 months. A $10B FDV token with 90% supply unlocking over 2 years has a "true float" valuation closer to $1-2B.