On December 1, decentralized exchange (DEX) dYdX will unlock 150 million DYDX tokens, a key milestone that had been postponed until last January. This unlocking will be the first to distribute DYDX tokens to the exchange’s investors, employees and founders. A major token unlock, equivalent to half a billion dollars.
$500 million worth of DYDX tokens to be released soon
150 million: that’s how many tokens the decentralized exchange (dYdX) will release on December 1. A massive token unlock of the kind we see relatively infrequently, equivalent to around half a billion dollars.
Initially scheduled to take place in January, the token unlock was eventually postponed by the dYdX teams, although no clear reasons were given at the time. In any case, investors reacted positively to the news, and the dYdX share price even rose by over 20% following the announcement.
A natural reaction given that, at the time, the unlock would have multiplied the supply in circulation by a factor of 1.67. This would have diluted the value of the DYDX token via the natural mechanism of inflation. For this reason, unlock tokens are generally carried out in moderate proportions, so that the impact on the token’s price is minimal.
However, this deadline is now fast approaching, and the impact of unlocking DYDX tokens is likely to be significant, even if partly reduced following the various unlocks that have taken place since last January.
Indeed, the equivalent of around $15 million (at the current exchange rate) is released in DYDX tokens every month, notably to contribute to the DEX security module or to trader rewards.
New utility for unlocked tokens
This token unlock marks an important milestone for the dYdX roadmap, as it will be the first to deliver DYDX tokens to investors, employees and founders. And 30% of the total number of tokens planned for this purpose will be distributed from December 1.
Preview of the impact of the upcoming DYDX token unlock
We’ll have to wait until December 1 to assess the impact of this token unlock on the DYDX share price. In any case, the token is up 80% over the last 12 months, with a small drop of 7% over the last 24 hours.
More unlock tokens are expected in the near future, including the Worldcoin token ($55.6 million), SUI ($48.5 million), Optimism ($41.5 million), 1inch ($33.7 million) and Solana ($32.7 million).
Calendar of unlock tokens occurring in the next 7 days
The next major token unlock will be that of the Aptos blockchain, which will release 24.84 million of its APT tokens within the next 2 weeks. This represents 8.97% of the supply of APT tokens in circulation, or around $172 million at the current price.
