Curriculum·S202 Token Analysis and Tokenomics·about 41 min
Reading a vesting schedule
By the end of this lesson you can
- →Read a vesting schedule as a forward supply curve and locate the cliffs on a calendar
- →Compute an unlock as a multiple of daily traded volume rather than as a percentage of supply
- →Explain what a low market-cap-to-FDV ratio commits a holder to, and over what period
- →Identify the arrangements that sit outside the published schedule and change it
Sophomore · enrolled learners
This lesson opens with The low float and high FDV cohort, 2024.
- What happened
- Research published in May 2024 found that tokens launched during that year had the lowest ratio of market capitalization to fully diluted valuation in recent memory, at around 12 percent, meaning roughly 88 percent of the eventual supply was not yet circulating at launch. The same work estimated that approximately $155B of tokens were scheduled to unlock between 2024 and 2030, and noted that without a matching increase in buy-side demand this represents structural selling pressure. It also observed that many of these tokens carried fully diluted valuations comparable to established assets while lacking similar traction, and that memecoins, which typically launch with their entire supply circulating and therefore have no future dilution, outperformed the low-float cohort over the period studied.
- The decision point
- None of this was hidden. Every schedule was published, the ratios were computable from public data, and the aggregate was large enough that a major research desk quantified it. Buyers were not deceived about the supply; they were pricing a float and receiving a claim on a much larger eventual supply, and the difference between those two things arrives on a calendar that was available in advance.
What you will be able to answer
- →What is a vesting schedule, analytically?
- →How should an unlock be measured?
- →What does a 12 percent MC/FDV commit you to?
- →What sits outside the published schedule?
Orientation and Year One are open: anyone can read them without an account. From Year Two onward the lessons are for enrolled learners, because progress through the later years only means anything if it is tracked against a record.
It is free. We do not sell the list and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Sources and review
- https://public.bnbstatic.com/static/files/research/low-float-and-high-fdv-how-did-we-get-here.pdf
- https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/low-vs-high-float-crypto
- https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/04/30/inside-movement-s-token-dump-scandal-secret-contracts-shadow-advisors-and-hidden-middlemen
- https://cryptobriefing.com/binance-research-token-unlocks-2030/
Confidence medium·Volatility high·Reviewed 2026-08-05·Owner unassigned
Contested
The $155B unlock estimate and the 12 percent MC/FDV figure come from one research desk's May 2024 analysis using its own sample and methodology, and both are sensitive to which tokens are included. Cite them with the source and the date rather than as measured facts.
That memecoins outperformed low-float tokens over the studied period is an observation about one window and is not evidence that full circulation causes outperformance. S202-06 gives the base rates for that category and they are severe. Do not let a revision turn this observation into a recommendation.
Whether unlocks reliably depress price is genuinely contested, because anticipation means much of the effect can be priced in beforehand and because unlocked tokens are not always sold. Teach the exposure and the arithmetic, not a prediction.