What Is a Token Unlock?

Most crypto projects do not release their entire supply on day one. Tokens set aside for the team, early investors, the foundation and ecosystem programmes are locked at launch and released on a published schedule that can run for years. A token unlock is one of those scheduled releases: the moment a batch of previously locked tokens becomes transferable.

The reason this matters is simple arithmetic. Circulating supply goes up while demand does not automatically follow, so every unlock is a test of whether the market can absorb new supply at the current price. Unlocks are not hidden either. They are written into the tokenomics before launch, which makes them one of the few genuinely predictable events in a market that has very few of them.

This page collects those schedules into a single calendar so you can see the whole forward picture at once rather than checking each project's documentation one at a time.

How to Read the Unlock Calendar

The calendar shows one month at a time. Each day that has an unlock lists the tokens releasing that day with the dollar value of the release, and the day cell fills more strongly the more value is unlocking. Days with nothing scheduled stay empty, which is the point: the shape of a month tells you where the supply pressure clusters.

Select any day to filter the table underneath it to that date, and select it again to clear the filter. The window chips above the calendar control the table and the summary band together, so you can narrow the whole page to the next week, month or quarter.

The coloured dot beside each token is its impact score, which is the size of the unlock measured against that token's market capitalisation. That is the number to read first, and the next section explains why.

Cliff Unlocks Versus Linear Vesting

Two schedule shapes dominate. A cliff unlock releases a large block in a single day, usually at the end of a lock period, and it is the shape most likely to move a price because the whole batch arrives at once. Linear vesting drips a smaller amount out on a regular cadence, most often monthly, which spreads the same total supply across a long period.

A project can run both at the same time. A first year cliff for early investors followed by monthly linear vesting for the team is a common structure. The table flags which shape each next unlock belongs to, because a one off cliff worth two percent of market cap is a very different event to a monthly drip of the same size that the market has already absorbed eleven times.

Why Unlock Size Matters More Than Unlock Count

A busy month is not automatically a heavy one. Ten small unlocks across ten tokens can release less value than one cliff, and the value itself still does not tell you much until you compare it to the token it belongs to. Twenty million dollars of new supply is a rounding error for a large cap and an existential event for a token with a two hundred million dollar market cap.

That is why every unlock here is scored as a percentage of the token's market cap rather than ranked by raw dollars. Anything under half a percent rarely registers. Between half a percent and two percent is worth noting. Above two percent the unlock is a meaningful share of the float, and above five percent it is the dominant fact about that token for the week. Sorting the table by impact rather than by value is usually the more useful view.

What the Data Does Not Tell You

An unlock schedule says when tokens become transferable. It does not say whether anyone intends to sell them. Team allocations are often held, foundation tokens frequently move into grants and liquidity programmes rather than onto exchanges, and some recipients are contractually restricted well past the unlock date. Plenty of large unlocks pass without a visible price reaction.

Timing is also not a signal on its own. Markets price known events in advance, so a large unlock is often sold into weeks before the date rather than on it, and the day itself can be uneventful or even positive once the overhang clears. Treat an entry on this calendar as a prompt to look at the token more closely, not as a forecast of what its price will do.

Schedules change too. Projects amend vesting terms, extend cliffs and burn unreleased allocations, and governance votes can rewrite a timetable that has been public for years.

Using Unlocks With Other Market Data

Supply events read best alongside positioning. An unlock landing into a market where funding rates are already stretched and open interest is elevated has more room to force liquidations than the same unlock into flat positioning. The RSI heatmap shows whether the token was already running hot into the date, and the Fear and Greed Index gives the wider backdrop.

Where capital sits matters as well. During a stretch of rising Bitcoin dominance, altcoin unlocks meet thinner bids than they do when the Altcoin Season Index is signalling rotation down the market cap curve. For the full history of any single asset, open its page from the table, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Nothing on this page is financial advice. Read our editorial methodology for how we research, source and fact check.