DYdX pushes back $282 million of token unlocks for investors, employees to December from February

by Tim Copeland, Yogita Khatri, and Frank Chaparro

Quick Take

dYdX has pushed back its token unlocks for investors, employees and consultants until the end of the year, according to a note shared with The Block.
This will significantly reduce the amount of tokens that will enter circulation on Feb. 3, which is when the unlocks were supposed to happen.

Decentralized exchange dYdX delayed its token unlocks for investors, employees and consultants to Dec. 1 from Feb. 3, according to a note sent out to investors obtained by The Block.

The exchange was set to release 150 million tokens ($282 million) to investors, employees and consultants next month, a move that would have doubled the current supply — with more tokens to be unlocked over the following months. Postponing the unlocks will shift a significant part of the impact to the end of the year.

Under the new schedule, the 150 million tokens — 30% of the 500 million tokens destined for investors, employees and consultants in total — will be unlocked on Dec. 1, according to the note. After that happens, 40% of the total tokens will unlock monthly over the following six months, then 20% over the following year and 10% the year after that.

DYdX is currently based on StarkEx, a zero-knowledge proof-powered layer running on top of Ethereum, but it’s in the process of abandoning this platform in favor of its own application-specific blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem.

The price of dydx has rallied in the last few days, rising to $1.88 today from around $1.30 on Jan. 19. The token is now at its highest point since early December. Tokens in the wider crypto market have also grown during that time, but typically by much less.

Update: dYdX confirmed The Block's reporting in a Jan. 25 tweet. It contained additional details that the token unlocks for employees and consultants were also getting delayed and this information has been added to the story.