The crypto market will witness token unlocks worth over $3.9 billion in February, led by SUI unlocking $322 million, The Sandbox (SAND) with $128 million, Aptos (APT) and Arbitrum (ARB) unlocking $101 million and $71 million, respectively.
As the crypto market welcomes the second month in 2025, it anticipates a massive wave of cliff unlocks totaling $3.9 billion.
Cliff unlocks are events where crypto projects release previously locked tokens into circulation. Prices tend to decline if demand doesn't match the supply hike.
Tokenomist data revealed that over 60 tokens, including SUI, APT, SAND, ARB, Avalanche (AVAX), Ethena (ENA), Immutable X (IMX) and EigenLayer (EIGEN), will increase their circulating supply in February.
SUI will see the highest supply injection in the month, with unlocks totaling $322 million. The hike in its circulating supply begins on February 1, with 80 million SUI worth roughly $288 million, hitting the market.
SUI's unlock volume represents 0.64% of its circulating supply, which could imply less effect on its price.
Other notable unlocks to look out for include SAND, which will unlock over $128 million worth of its locked supply.
APT, AVAX and ARB will also unlock $101 million, $64 million and $71 million worth of their tokens into circulation in February.
Meanwhile, $79 million worth of token unlocks will hit the market next week. The tokens involved include XDC, NEON, GGP, AGI, MAVIA and SPELL.
XDC will unlock $49 million worth of its tokens next week and gradually increase its circulating supply throughout the month.
The developer or creator of each cryptocurrency decides on the total number of tokens that can be minted or issued. Only a certain number of these assets can be minted by mining, staking or other mechanisms. This is defined by the algorithm of the underlying blockchain technology. On the other hand, circulating supply can also be decreased via actions such as burning tokens, or mistakenly sending assets to addresses of other incompatible blockchains.
Market capitalization is the result of multiplying the circulating supply of a certain asset by the asset’s current market value.
Trading volume refers to the total number of tokens for a specific asset that has been transacted or exchanged between buyers and sellers within set trading hours, for example, 24 hours. It is used to gauge market sentiment, this metric combines all volumes on centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges. Increasing trading volume often denotes the demand for a certain asset as more people are buying and selling the cryptocurrency.
Funding rates are a concept designed to encourage traders to take positions and ensure perpetual contract prices match spot markets. It defines a mechanism by exchanges to ensure that future prices and index prices periodic payments regularly converge. When the funding rate is positive, the price of the perpetual contract is higher than the mark price. This means traders who are bullish and have opened long positions pay traders who are in short positions. On the other hand, a negative funding rate means perpetual prices are below the mark price, and hence traders with short positions pay traders who have opened long positions.