Locked crypto assets valued over $3.1 billion will be released in May, with projects like Sui and Pyth Network each unlocking over $1 billion in tokens. Crypto ownership locking is done to encourage continued commitment to a crypto project. Locked earned crypto tokens prevent early investors or team members from hastily selling their tokens and leaving the project, thus maintaining the supply and demand balance.
What Will Happen in May?
Among the projects releasing locked crypto assets, the Layer-1 blockchain platform Sui will unlock the largest amount. Investors from Series A and B, early contributors, the Mysten Labs treasury, and the community reserve are expected to unlock nearly one billion tokens on May 31. The value of the tokens was approximately $1.15 billion at the time this article was written.
Meanwhile, the market data platform Pyth Network will announce the second largest amount in May. On May 20, the crypto project will unlock over two billion tokens for protocol development, ecosystem growth, publisher rewards, and private sale investors.
The value of the tokens to be released by Pyth Network’s (PYTH) token is around $0.51 each, making the market value of the released tokens approximately $1.1 billion. In addition to these, projects like Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum (ARB), Starknet (STRK), Optimism (OP), and Immutable (IMX) will witness token unlocks totaling over $700 million.
Noteworthy Events
Aptos, will release 11.3 million APT tokens worth $101 million to its foundation, community, core participants, and investors on May 12. On May 22, Avalanche will unlock approximately 9.5 million AVAX worth about $321 million for strategic partners, foundation, team, and airdrop event.
The Layer-2 blockchain network Arbitrum will further release ARB tokens worth $95 million on May 16. The tokens will be allocated to the project team and investors. On March 16, Arbitrum distributed $2.3 billion worth of tokens to its team and investors. Additionally, the Starknet team will unlock $84 million worth of tokens for investors and early contributors on May 15, while Immutable will unlock $56 million worth of crypto tokens for ecosystem and project development on May 17.
The Layer-2 scaling solution Optimism will also unlock 24.1 million OP tokens on May 29. The tokens are worth approximately $70 million at current market prices. In May 2023, Optimism released $587 million worth of OP tokens for early contributors and investors.
