Crypto analytics platform TokenUnlocks has released its 2022 annual report. The analytics firm’s report includes altcoin projects that will unlock in 2023. Also, the impact of the unlock action on altcoin prices is analyzed.
Altcoin projects that will unlock in 2023
TokenUnlocks highlights the decline in overall crypto market capitalization in 2022. As you follow on Kriptokoin.com, 2022 was marked by major events such as the collapse of Terra and a fraud case at a major crypto exchange like FTX. However, the surviving projects continue to struggle. In this context, one of the important events that will take place in 2023 will be token unlocks. As you know, unlocks also play a role in the launch of new liquid tokens. TokenUnlocks highlights the following in its report:
The price of tokens tends to drop by as much as 15% before an unlock event. However, it remains relatively stable thereafter. This trend is illustrated through data analysis using Bitcoin’s price denominator as a reference point.
In the report, TokenUnlocks looks at token unlocks and how they affect crypto projects and markets. It also analyzes the top 300 projects to predict future unlock values for the coming year.
TokenUnlock’s report states that in 2023, a total of $102 billion worth of tokens locked in 15 altcoin projects can be unlocked. As you can see from the chart above, the most notable unlocking action is observed in Ripple (XRP). Accordingly, there is a possibility that $18 billion worth of XRP will be unlocked. This reveals a significant weight of XRP compared to other altcoin projects.
Filecoin (FIL) and Optimism (OP) follow Ripple with $4.9 billion and $3.7 billion, respectively. TokenUnlock features 15 altcoin projects with the highest locked value for 2023 in the report. Nine of them hold more than $1 billion in locked tokens. The remaining 6 of them range from 1 billion dollars to 500 million dollars.
Price impact of unlocking
TokenUnlock also analyzes the overall price impact affected by token unlocking. In this context, “As more and more percentages of the total supply are released from smart contracts or wallets and become available in the market, it would be wise for investors to wait for the price of these tokens to drop,” it says. Because, after all, it seems too simplistic to assume that demand remains the same.
The analytics platform states that they conducted an analysis of the data they collected and came to the following conclusion:
The x-axis in the chart below shows the number of days before or after an unlock event. Negative numbers represent before and positive numbers after. The y-axis shows the percentage change in price relative to the day it was unlocked. As we can see, there is a trend that shows the price tends to increase as we get closer to the unlock day.
If we look forward to 2023, it will certainly be interesting. Because, according to TokenUnlock, many projects raising funds in 2021 may need to survive by cashing in their earned tokens for operations. In the meantime, it is emphasized that the revenue from the protocols is expected to decrease as most of the users leave.