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Crypto is in a constant state of flux. Tokenomics is no different. 

Of course, there are absolutes in crypto. Private keys always grant access to digital assets within that public-key pairing, for example. That someone will inevitably launch a memecoin for every passing fad in our collective culture is another.

But crypto’s non-stop experiments with tokenomics have become integral to the asset classes’ core thesis.

How projects fund themselves, entice venture capital and encourage early participation is, in many cases, a large part of the identity of those individual coins. 

For bitcoin, there can only ever be 21 million coins, claimable only by expending a certain amount of energy. The scarcity is Bitcoin’s meme.

Solana’s private sales to venture capital firms have otherwise morphed into its value proposition: All those VC dollars have encouraged a vibrant ecosystem of projects that utilize the protocol. 

That has in turn generated real value for both institutional and retail backers across the Solana space. Or, at least, enough for the market to absorb the roughly $70 million in fresh SOL being printed for the benefit of network validators every week. Abundance is Solana’s meme.

While we’ve had huge token unlocks before, we’re about to see a batch of newer projects release billions of dollars worth of their tokens over the next year.

Five coins in particular are worth paying attention to, all of which debuted on public markets within the last year: ONDO, JTO, W, PYTH and TIA. 

ONDO and JTO’s circulating supplies are set to more than double, while TIA and PYTH will increase by over 80% and 58%, respectively.

Between them, crypto worth over $3.9 billion will be unlocked at today’s prices. If token prices rise between now and those unlocks, the real number will be higher. (Additional tokens are usually seeped into the system outside of these big unlocks, often at daily or weekly intervals.)

PYTH’s unlock, currently valued at $725 million, won’t happen until May next year, earmarked to be directed toward ecosystem growth and rewarding network participants. W’s happens one month earlier and ONDO’s in January, while JTO’s is in December. 

TIA’s enormous $1 billion unlock occurs this time next week, on Halloween, one year after its trading debut.

65 million tokens will go to backers from Celestia’s Series A and B rounds, per The Tie, which included Polychain Capital, Galaxy and Delphi Ventures, among others as well as 52.5 million for those in its 2021 Seed round, including Binance Labs and Maven 11 and more.

Another 58 million TIA will be unlocked for initial core contributors. 

It’s unlikely that all those tokens will be sold at once. We also don’t have too many examples of what happens to token prices around these big unlocks. But the chart above shows just how drastic the change will be, at least in TIA’s case. 

The blue area is the market cap of TIA’s circulating supply when it first started trading last year. The green area is the value of the TIA supply that has been printed since then, and the purple line tracks its price. 

Faded areas on the right side of the chart show TIA’s market cap directly following next week’s unlock. It’s impossible to say exactly how much its market cap will jump, because it depends on the price of TIA, but the chart assumes TIA will trade in line with its rolling average over the past three months.

Whether the market agrees TIA should stay the same price, even with 80% more sellable tokens out there, is a whole other story. 

Still, so far so good: TIA has more or less trended sideways for the past quarter and then some.

— David Canellis

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• BTC has rolled over, dropping 1.6% in the past day to $66,250. ETH is down 2.5% to $2,575.

• APE, APT and BRETT have dragged the most amid the correction, with the former shedding 20%. APE is still up 60% in the past week.

• Pump.fun just launched more coins in a single day than ever before: 34,094.

• Solana’s weekly real economic value (transaction fees + MEV tips) is at an all-time high, $36.8 million, per Blockworks Research data.

• ETH’s supply is now 0.11% away from returning to pre-Merge levels, or 128,519 ETH ($330.5 million). Ethereum currently net mints 1,594 ETH ($4.1 million) per day.

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 🎉 Good news

After seven long months, Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan is one step closer to being a free man. 

Nigeria has finally dropped the money laundering case against the former IRS agent, according to multiple reports. The case was largely focused on Gambaryan’s employer — not Gambaryan himself — though he personally faced charges.

Now, the Nigerian government will fully focus the case on Binance, which has previously denied the charges.

In case you somehow missed it… Gambaryan’s been held by Nigeria since last February, after landing in the country for business meetings with the government on behalf of Binance. He was then jailed in the notorious Kuje prison late last spring, after he pleaded not guilty. 

Unfortunately, the whole saga hasn’t come without challenges. Gambaryan’s health has suffered, which we mentioned in one of our last updates on the executive.

The good news is Gambaryan is now basically in the clear. The money laundering charge was the last thing holding him in Nigeria, given that the government dropped the tax evasion charges over the summer.

Binance told Blockworks — and Nigeria — a number of times that Gambaryan wasn’t a “decision maker” at the company, meaning he was not in control of any actions taken by the company itself.

Even Yuki Gambaryan, Tigran’s wife, reiterated Binance in her own recent statements. Until now, it didn’t seem to matter to the Nigerian government, which proceeded with the cases.

Politicians from the US government visited Gambaryan earlier this year, calling on Nigeria to release Gambaryan to no avail.

Rep. French Hill called the situation “outrageous” in September after videos surfaced of a visibly distressed Gambaryan entering the Nigerian courtroom.

Gambaryan has a herniated disk in his back. He’s also battled pneumonia. 

Bloomberg reported — citing unnamed sources — that the case was dismissed due to Gambaryan’s health issues. However, not even two weeks ago, the court denied his bail despite his ongoing medical problems. 

Regardless, Gambaryan can now seek the medical attention he needs and will hopefully be reunited with his wife and young children soon.

— Katherine Ross

• Circle is optimistic that the United Kingdom will introduce a stablecoin bill in a matter of months. 

• MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor advocated for institutions — like BlackRock and Fidelity — to custody bitcoin in a recent interview. 

• Saylor not only drew the ire of bitcoiners, but also Vitalik Buterin who called his comments “batshit insane.”

• Is retail back? CryptoQuant noted that retail activity saw a pick up in October. 

• Despite hefty bitcoin transfers, Tesla still holds roughly $780 million of bitcoin according to Arkham.

Q: Can the market absorb all these unlocks?

That’s the million dollar question. 

Going off conversations I’ve had with folks around unlocks, the concern is real. But it really depends on the number of unlocks we see. And then, of course, the number of token launches post-election. 

A bull market gives a bit of padding to hefty unlocks, but at some point there has to be a discussion of what’s healthy and what adds unnecessary pressure to the wider market.

But first, in my opinion, we need to assess the appetite, and we can’t really do that until the dust settles. Unlock away, I guess.

— Katherine Ross 

An old saying goes: “It's already priced in, everything, all of it, past, present, future, the infinite expanse of the universe, you're priced, I'm priced, we are all priced, in.”

To be clear, unlocks aren’t bad in and of themselves. Devs, marketing and BD gotta eat. Bootstrapping projects alone, without VC funding, also isn’t exactly the most compelling route to take as a crypto entrepreneur these days.

I’m sure we’d see more projects shed VCs altogether and go straight to market — thereby skirting the need for big unlocks — if the SEC didn’t fear innovation so much.

The reality is that the unlocks will happen and the market response will probably be underwhelming. 

Whether that’s because participants haven’t fully grokked the size of some of the unlocks coming from low-float projects, or because they anticipate a bull run so big that it drowns out the waves of fresh supply, who knows.

— David Canellis