This week, four blockchain projects will release a combined ~$57.7 million worth of tokens between December 9 and 12, putting fresh selling pressure on their prices at a time when the broader market remains fragile.
Avalanche: Always landing safely
Avalanche tokens are getting unlocked on December 9, with 1.67 million AVAX tokens worth $22.44 million. They are just 0.39% of the total market cap.
Cornell professor Emin Gün Sirer built this high-speed network, which now powers apps for Amazon Web Services and Deloitte. The latest token unlock is part of a four-year payout plan set in 2020, going mostly to early partners, the Avalanche Foundation, stakers who help run the network, and the core development team. Past unlocks of similar size have barely affected the price.
Linea: Faces the Real Test
December 10 brings this week’s biggest game to watch. Linea unlocks 1.14 billion tokens valued at 9.3 million, but representing a whopping 6.83% of the market cap. ConsenSys, the team behind MetaMask, built Linea to make Ethereum transactions cheaper and faster, using technology that bundles hundreds of transactions. SWIFT recently picked them for banking settlement experiments with BNP Paribas and Citibank, which sounds impressive. But here’s the problem: the token’s already crashed 67% in two months. This supply dump could push it lower unless that $30 million MetaMask rewards program brings enough new buyers.
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Aptos: History Against It
December 12 sees Aptos release 11.30 million tokens worth $19.72 million—the week’s biggest dollar figure at 1.54% of market cap. Aptos is a fast, secure Layer-1 blockchain built that aims to deliver high transaction speeds and low-cost smart contracts for DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and everyday apps. The blockchain handles over 160,000 transactions per second, competing directly with Solana.
Traders should take one factor into account this week: last month’s unlock “triggered” a 13.4% price drop within nine days. Anyone holding APT should, therefore, pay attention.
Pump.fun: It May Barely Register
December 12 also sees Pump.fun – the Solana app that lets anyone launch a memecoin in seconds – adding 2.08 billion tokens worth $6.26 million to circulation. These tokens represent 0.21 per cent of the total supply. Since it went live earlier this year, Pump.fun has already collected almost $800 million in fees, and it uses nearly all of that money to buy back and burn its tokens. Bottom line: most traders expect this unlock to be a non-event, as it may not affect the token price.
Indeed, it may be an interesting week. But token unlocks separate strong projects from weak ones. Anything under 1% rarely matters. But Linea’s 6.83% release? That’s going to hurt unless their banking partnerships deliver real momentum.
