Analysis
July 29, 2024 3:13 PM
Nearly $1.5 billion in tokens from major crypto projects are set to be unlocked in August, with 1 billion XRP tokens — worth $609 million at current prices — making up a massive part of the month’s total on August 1.
Ripple, the firm behind the XRP Ledger and the native token XRP, has unlocked up to 1 billion tokens on the first day of every month since 2017. It uses several main escrow wallets, including Ripple (24) and Ripple (25), to evenly split the unlocks each month.
However, Ripple may look to re-lock much of the newly-released XRP. In June, Ripple relocked 800 million XRP from its June 1 unlock, but it still made moves to sell around 300 million XRP — worth $182 million at the time — according to data from TradingView.
While up to 1 billion XRP tokens are unlocked at the start of each month, the actual amount of XRP released into circulation is "likely much less than this" due to a re-escrow process, wrote XRP ledger in a 2017 blog post.
Other major unlocks in August include those from layer-1 network Avalanche and cross-chain bridging platform Wormhole, releasing a combined $449 million worth of tokens, per Token Unlocks data.
Wormhole (W) will unlock 33.3% of its circulating supply — 600 million W tokens with a current market value of $180.5 million — on August 3. This follows its long-awaited airdrop launch on April 4.
On August 20, Avalanche will unlock 2.4% of the circulating supply of AVAX tokens, amounting to 9.4 million AVAX with a current market value of $268 million.
Other than XRP, three other projects, including layer-1 network Sui, decentralized exchange dYdX, and “universal” blockchain ZetaChain, will also unlock significant portions of their supply on the first day of August.
Sui will unlock 2.56% of its circulating supply, releasing 64 million tokens with a current value of $50 million on August 1.
dYdX will unlock 8.33 million tokens worth nearly $11 million the same day — amounting to 3.65% of its circulating supply. Notably, the tokens will unlock for three groups: investors, founders and staff, and future employees.
Meanwhile, the new layer-1 network ZetaChain (ZETA) will unlock nearly 18.9% of its circulating supply on August 1. At current prices, 53.9 million tokens amount to a market value of around $34.5 million. It follows its launch in February this year.
Crypto gaming network ImmutableX will unlock 2.11% of the circulating supply of IMX on August 9, amounting to 32.5 million tokens which command a current market value of $49 million.
Aptos, Sui’s rival layer-1 network, will unlock $80 million worth of its native token APT on August 12, while Web3 gaming platform The Sandbox will unlock $69 million worth of SAND on August 14.
Two Ethereum layer-2 networks, Starknet and Arbitrum, are set to unleash tokens as well.
On August 15, Starknet will unlock 64 million tokens, amounting to 4.4% of the token’s circulating supply. The token has a current market value of $35 million.
On August 16, Arbitrum (ARB) will unlock 92.6 million tokens amounting to 2.8% of its circulating supply. The market value of the yet-to-be-unlocked tokens stands at $67 million.
Disclaimer: Backdoor provides informational content only, it is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Investments in digital assets involve risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results. We recommend conducting your own research before making any investment decisions.