Cliff Expiry
The date an allocation's initial lockup runs out and its first tranche of previously untouchable tokens becomes releasable, most commonly 12 months after TGE. Because float is at its thinnest going in, cliff expiry is frequently the largest single-day float expansion in a token's life: Succinct's expiry on August 5, 2026 released 104.17% of circulating supply.
TradFi parallel: Like an IPO lockup expiry, or the one-year cliff on an employee option grant. Nothing is exercisable before the date, and on it a full year of accrued entitlement becomes available at once.
Key Takeaways
- 01Cliff expiry is the once-per-allocation date a zero-release lockup ends and the first tranche becomes releasable, most often 12 months after TGE
- 02Not a synonym for cliff unlock: Tokenomist classifies any discrete release at intervals exceeding one day as a cliff, so routine monthly releases are cliff events but not cliff expiries
- 03Float is at its thinnest going into the expiry, which is why the first tranche can exceed the entire circulating supply: Succinct released 104.17% of float on August 5, 2026
- 04Cliff expiry starts a multi-year schedule rather than ending one. Pump.fun's expiry released 82.5B of a 330B insider stack, leaving 247.5B locked behind it
- 05Team, investor, treasury and ecosystem buckets usually carry separate cliff dates, so one token can face several cliff expiries at different points in its schedule
- 06A cliff expiry is a scheduled, published date, which means the market can position ahead of it long before the tokens move
How It Works
Cliff expiry is the once-per-allocation moment when a zero-release lockup window ends. Before it, the allocation emits nothing at all. On it, the first tranche of previously untouchable tokens becomes releasable, and the token's float steps rather than drifts. The term is narrower than "cliff" as Tokenomist uses it in its emission methodology, where a cliff is any discrete release occurring at intervals exceeding one day. Under that definition a routine monthly or quarterly release is a cliff event, and most tokens have dozens of them. A cliff expiry is the specific transition out of the lockup into the first of those releases, so every cliff expiry is a cliff unlock, but almost no cliff unlock is a cliff expiry.
Twelve months after TGE is the market convention for insider allocations. Monad launched with 50.6% of supply locked under a strict one-year cliff. Succinct ran a 12-month post-TGE cliff on its Community, Founder/Team, Private Investor and Reserve buckets. Pump.fun's Team and Existing Investor allocations were untouched from the July 2025 launch until July 12, 2026. Tokenomist's launch analysis found the same pattern among the strongest performing launches of the cycle: HYPE scheduled no unlocks until after year one, and ONDO followed a similar shape, with minimal first-year unlocks limiting sell pressure while the market formed a price.
The expansion tends to be violent precisely because the lockup worked. A year of zero insider release keeps circulating supply small, so when the cliff expires the first tranche is measured against a base that has barely grown. Succinct's August 5, 2026 unlock released $35.22M, equal to 104.17% of circulating supply, more than doubling the float in a single day and ranking among the largest single-day supply expansions of 2026. Roughly 20% of total supply had been unlocked before the event. The dollar figure was unremarkable; the ratio was not, and that gap is the defining characteristic of a cliff expiry.
Treat cliff expiry as the start of a distribution schedule rather than the clearing of one. Pump.fun's July 12, 2026 expiry released 82.5B PUMP (Team 50B plus Existing Investors 32.5B), about 20.3% of circulating supply and 8.25% of max, leaving 247.5B insider tokens still locked behind it on a tail that is not published. Monad's cliff expiry, dated 24 November 2026 twelve months after its 24 November 2025 TGE, opens a phase where 39.9% of total supply unlocks across years two to four, roughly 370% of the initial circulating supply. Lighter's LIT is expected to flip from net supply contraction to expansion at its cliff in late December 2026, though the pre-cliff window is not release-free: Lighter funds a 6% staking APR out of its 250M token ecosystem reserve, roughly 7.5M LIT a year, with about 3.72M LIT already paid to stakers. Different allocations carry different cliff dates, so a single token can face several cliff expiries, and the calendar matters more than any one of them.
Real World Examples
Succinct (PROVE): 12-month post-TGE cliff expires August 5, 2026
View →The end of Succinct's 12-month post-TGE cliff released $35.22M at 104.17% of circulating supply, more than doubling the float in a single day across Community, Founder/Team, Private Investor and Reserve allocations. Roughly 20% of total supply had been unlocked prior to the event.
Monad (MON): 50.6% of supply behind a strict one-year cliff
View →Monad launched with a low initial float and 50.6% of supply locked under a one-year cliff, with the 24 November 2026 expiry triggering the first large unlock of roughly 10.7B team tokens alongside monthly investor and treasury vesting. Once cliffs expire, 39.9% of total supply unlocks over years two to four, about 370% of the initial circulating supply.
Pump.fun (PUMP): first insider tokens since launch, July 12, 2026
View →The first time any Team or Existing Investor tokens became available since the July 2025 launch: 82.5B PUMP released, Team 50B plus Existing Investors 32.5B, about 20.3% of circulating supply and 8.25% of max supply. A further 247.5B insider tokens remain locked on an unpublished tail.
Lighter (LIT): a late December 2026 cliff splits two supply regimes
View →LIT's Team and Investor allocations, 500M tokens between them, are scheduled to a single cliff in late December 2026, twelve months after the 30 December 2025 airdrop. Lighter publishes no vesting dates of its own, so the exact day is not primary-sourced. Tokenomist frames the token as two regimes divided by that cliff, with weekly release pressure of roughly 3.2M LIT after it. The earlier regime is quieter rather than empty, since about 3.72M LIT has already gone to stakers from the 250M ecosystem reserve funding a 6% staking APR. Net contraction rests on a separately announced burn of about 15.5M LIT, some 6.3% of circulating supply, first burning after Q2 2026; Lighter's docs describe fee-funded daily TWAP buybacks without mentioning burning at all.
Hyperliquid (HYPE): a first year with nothing scheduled
View →Tokenomist's launch analysis identified HYPE as the cycle's strongest performer, with no unlocks scheduled until after year one and modest releases relative to circulating supply thereafter. It shows that a long pre-cliff window is a design choice, and that what follows the expiry matters as much as the expiry itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is cliff expiry the same thing as a cliff unlock?
They overlap but are not the same. Tokenomist's emission methodology defines a cliff as any discrete release at intervals exceeding one day, which makes weekly, monthly and quarterly releases cliff events. Cliff expiry is the narrower case: the single date an allocation leaves a zero-release lockup and produces its first tranche. Every cliff expiry is a cliff unlock; the vast majority of cliff unlocks are routine schedule steps, not expiries.
Why is 12 months the standard lockup length?
It is convention rather than a rule, inherited from equity practice where a one-year cliff is standard on employee grants and IPO lockups. In crypto it shows up repeatedly in the schedules Tokenomist tracks: Monad locked 50.6% of supply for a full year, Succinct ran a 12-month post-TGE cliff, and Pump.fun's insiders waited from July 2025 to July 2026. Some projects run longer or gate on milestones instead of time, but a year is the default a reader should assume until the schedule says otherwise.
Does the overhang clear once the cliff expires?
Usually not. The expiry releases the first tranche and typically hands the allocation over to linear or monthly vesting for years afterwards. Pump.fun's expiry released 82.5B of a 330B insider stack with 247.5B still locked behind it, and Monad's expiry opens a period where 39.9% of total supply unlocks across years two to four. The expiry is the inflection point, not the end of the schedule.
How do I find upcoming cliff expiries on Tokenomist?
Start from the unlock calendar to see scheduled release dates, then use the Emission Screener to rank upcoming cliff events by size and by percentage of circulating supply. A cliff expiry usually stands out as the first non-zero release in an allocation's history, which is visible on a token's release schedule chart as a step up from a flat line. The Allocation Screener shows which buckets are still fully locked and therefore still have an expiry ahead of them.
Related Terms
cliff unlockvesting scheduleinsider unlockunlock calendarlocked supplytoken generation eventvesting completion
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