Nearly $1.5 billion in tokens from major crypto projects are set to be unlocked in August, with 1 billion XRP tokens — worth $609 million at current prices — making up a significant part of the month’s total on August 1.
Ripple, the firm behind the XRP Ledger blockchain and its native XRP token, has unlocked up to 1 billion tokens on the first day of every month since 2017. It uses several main escrow wallets, including Ripple (24) and Ripple (25), to evenly split the unlocks each month. However, Ripple may re-lock much of the newly released XRP. For instance, Ripple re-locked 800 million XRP from its June 1 unlock but still sold around 300 million XRP — worth $182 million at the time — according to data from TradingView.
While up to 1 billion XRP tokens are unlocked at the start of each month, the actual amount of XRP released into circulation is “likely much less than this” due to a re-escrow process, wrote XRP Ledger in a 2017 blog post.
Tokens unlocking on the first day of August
Other major unlocks in August include those from layer-1 network Avalanche and cross-chain bridging platform Wormhole, releasing a combined $449 million worth of tokens, per Token Unlocks data. On August 3, Wormhole will unlock 33.3% of its circulating supply, amounting to 600 million Wormhole (W) tokens with a current market value of $180.5 million. This follows their airdrop launch on April 4.
On August 20, Avalanche will unlock 2.4% of its circulating supply of its Avalanche tokens, amounting to 9.4 million AVAX with a current market value of $268 million.
Other August unlocks
Other than XRP, another three projects, including layer-1 network Sui, decentralised exchange dYdX, and “universal” blockchain ZetaChain, will also unlock significant portions of their supply on the first day of August. Sui will unlock 2.56% of its circulating supply, releasing 64 million tokens with a current value of $50 million on August 1. DYdX will unlock 8.33 million tokens worth nearly $11 million on the same day — amounting to 3.65% of its circulating supply. Notably, the tokens will unlock for three groups: investors, founders and staff, and future employees. Meanwhile, the new layer-1 network ZetaChain will unlock nearly 18.9% of its circulating supply of ZetaChain (ZETA) tokens on August 1. At current prices, 53.9 million tokens have a market value of around $34.5 million. This follows its launch in February.
Crypto gaming network ImmutableX will unlock 2.11% of the circulating supply of Immutable (IMX) tokens on August 9, amounting to 32.5 million tokens, which command a current market value of $49 million. Aptos, Sui’s rival layer-1 network, will unlock $80 million worth of its native Aptos tokens on August 12, while Web3 gaming platform The Sandbox will unlock $69 million worth of its native The Sandbox tokens on August 14. Two Ethereum layer-2 networks, Starknet and Arbitrum, are also set to release tokens. On August 15, Starknet will unlock 64 million Starknet (STRK) tokens, amounting to 4.4% of the token’s circulating supply. The tokens have a current market value of $35 million. On August 16, Arbitrum will unlock 92.6 million Arbitrum (ARB) tokens, amounting to 2.8% of its circulating supply. The market value of the yet-to-be-unlocked tokens stands at $67 million.
