Oracle service network Pyth saw its circulating token supply grow by over 105% on Monday, while layer 1 blockchain network Avalanche will unlock $369 million worth of AVAX tokens on Wednesday.
Crypto protocols lock up their tokens, in part to prevent large-scale selling during the initial stages of the project.
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Posted May 20, 2024 at 6:05 pm EST.
The week of May 20 will see oracle service network Pyth and layer 1 blockchain network Avalanche release more than $1 billion worth of previously locked PYTH and AVAX into the open market, according to data from research firm Messari.
Pyth on Monday unlocked 1.58 billion of its native PYTH tokens, worth about $736 million. Of the freshly unlocked tokens, 75% have been allocated for ecosystem growth, 16.67% have been earmarked for private sales, and the remainder will be dedicated to protocol development.
Pyth’s May unlock, which increased the token’s circulating supply by a staggering 105%, comes several months after its token genesis event in Nov. 2023, when developers opened up airdrop claims for early users.
Read More: Pyth Network Airdrops 100 Million Tokens to Dapps
Messari’s data also highlights how layer 1 blockchain network Avalanche will unlock 9.54 million AVAX tokens, worth about $369 million, on Wednesday, May 22. Protocol team members will receive just under half of the tokens, worth about $174 million, while strategic partners will see roughly $86.92 million in AVAX tokens released to them. $64.39 million has been reserved for the Avalanche Foundation, while the final $43.46 million tranche is for potential airdrops.
Unlike Pyth’s massive increase, Avalanche’s circulating supply rose by less than 3%. Avalanche’s token unlock this week is its second unlock in 2024. In Feb., the blockchain network released a similar amount of tokens, with another token unlock scheduled for August.
Read More: Avalanche Foundation Jumps on the Meme-Coin Wave
Token unlocks refer to the gradual process of releasing previously restricted tokens into the circulating supply, enabling token holders of these once-frozen tokens to use them as they see fit, which could include selling their tokens on a decentralized exchange or using them as collateral in a lending protocol.
While the price of PYTH has decreased more than 30% in the past 30 days, from $0.67 to $0.46, AVAX has remained flat, increasing 0.94% in the same period to $38.66, per CoinGecko.
Representatives of Pyth and Avalanche did not immediately return Unchained’s request for comment.
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