Crypto market braces for $875M token unlocks in June

Nearly $875 million in crypto tokens from projects like Aptos, Arbitrum, Starknet and Sui will be unlocked in June as vesting periods end.

Locked cryptocurrencies worth almost $875 million may hit the markets in June as token vesting periods for more than 30 blockchain-based projects expire.

According to data tracker Token Unlocks, the largest chunk of crypto tokens to be unlocked in June 2024 belongs to Aptos (APT), Arbitrum (ARB), Starknet (STRK) and Sui (SUI).

Crypto vesting is a common practice within the crypto space to prevent a project’s team members or early investors from dumping their tokens early.

Using different mechanisms, vesting locks crypto tokens to prevent their holders from selling them all at once and putting heavy pressure on the markets, which usually leads to a decline in token prices.

Largest token unlocks i June

Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum will unlock 92.65 million ARB tokens worth $105.6 million on June 16. Nearly $64 million in tokens are allocated to the project’s team and advisers, while $41.6 million in ARB will be released for its investors.

On March 16, Arbitrum released 1.1 billion ARB tokens worth $2.32 billion at the time. Since then, the token’s price has dropped by over 50%, from a high of $2.27 on March 8 to $1.13 at the time of writing.

Layer-1 blockchain project Aptos 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 the two biggest June unlocks, zero-knowledge proofs project Starknet will also unlock millions in tokens. On June 15, the ZK protocol will release 64 million STRK tokens worth $78 million for its early contributors and investors.

Related: $900M in vested tokens set to be released in February

Meanwhile, optimistic rollups project Optimism will unlock another 31.34 million OP tokens, worth about $78 million at the time of writing. On May 31, the project unlocked a similar amount of tokens for its core contributors and investors and will do the same in June.

On June 1, layer-1 blockchain platform Sui will unlock 65 million tokens worth $66 million. The tokens will be released for its Series A and Series B investors, early contributors, Mysten Labs treasury and community reserve, according to Token Unlocks. The project previously released about $1 billion in crypto tokens in May.