Locked cryptocurrencies worth nearly $875 million are set to become available in the market in June as the token vesting periods for more than 30 blockchain-based projects come to an end. This information comes from data tracker Token Unlocks, which reveals that the largest portion of unlocked crypto tokens in June 2024 belongs to Aptos (APT), Arbitrum (ARB), Starknet (STRK), and Sui (SUI).
Crypto vesting is a common practice in the cryptocurrency industry that aims to prevent the early dumping of tokens by a project’s team members or initial investors. By implementing various mechanisms, vesting ensures that crypto tokens cannot be sold all at once, thereby avoiding excessive pressure on the market, which typically leads to a decline in token prices.
One significant unlock event in June involves the Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum, which will release 92.65 million ARB tokens worth $105.6 million on June 16. Out of this amount, approximately $64 million in tokens will be allocated to the project’s team and advisors, while $41.6 million in ARB tokens will be released to investors.
The price chart for Arbitrum’s layer-2 network over the past three months shows a decline in value. On March 16, Arbitrum released 1.1 billion ARB tokens valued at $2.32 billion at the time. Since then, the price of the token has dropped by more than 50%, going from a high of $2.27 on March 8 to $1.13 at the time of writing.
Another project, Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain platform, will release 11.1 million APT tokens worth $102.6 million in June. On June 12, the network will unlock $12.1 million in tokens for its foundation, $29.1 million for its community, $35.9 million for its core contributors, and $25.5 million for its investors.
Following these significant unlocks, the zero-knowledge proofs project Starknet will also release millions of tokens. On June 15, the ZK protocol will unlock 64 million STRK tokens worth $78 million for its early contributors and investors.
Furthermore, the optimistic rollups project Optimism will unlock an additional 31.34 million OP tokens, valued at approximately $78 million at the time of writing. In May, the project unlocked a similar amount of tokens for its core contributors and investors, and it will do the same in June.
On June 1, the layer-1 blockchain platform Sui will unlock 65 million tokens worth $66 million. These tokens will be released to its Series A and Series B investors, early contributors, Mysten Labs treasury, and community reserve, according to Token Unlocks. In May, the project previously released about $1 billion in crypto tokens.
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