Implied FDV
Implied FDV is the fully diluted valuation a fundraising round implies, and dividing it by the project's total supply backs out the per-token entry price investors came in at. Rounds are usually announced as a dollar valuation with no per-token price attached, so this division is the only way to put private investors on the same price axis as spot. It is a reconstruction, not a reported figure, and it breaks whenever the round was not a clean token sale.
TradFi parallel: Backing out the price per share from a startup's post-money valuation and its fully diluted share count, then comparing that number to where the stock later trades.
Key Takeaways
- 01The round valuation is the implied FDV, and dividing it by total supply gives the implied entry price: Lighter's roughly $1.5B Series B against 1 billion LIT implies an entry near $1.50 per token
- 02It is a reconstruction, not a disclosure: rounds are announced as valuations, and the per-token price investors actually paid is usually not published
- 03It breaks when the round is not a clean token sale, as with Lighter's equity-plus-token-warrants Series B, which is why Tokenomist calls the figure entry-price context rather than a cost basis
- 04Company equity valuations do not convert: StarkWare's $100M Series D at an $8B valuation (May 2022, up from $2B) priced the business, not a per-STRK entry
- 05The output is only useful against spot: Blur's February 2023 round implied about $0.33 per BLUR while the token traded at $0.32 into its June 2023 cliff, leaving only the seed round in profit
- 06Where a per-token price does exist the two should agree: PUMP's $0.004 ICO on a fixed 1 trillion cap is the same $4B figure read from either direction
How It Works
The arithmetic is deliberately simple: take the valuation attached to a round and divide it by the total supply the token will ever have. Lighter's Series B raised $68M at about a $1.5B valuation against a 1 billion LIT supply, which implies an entry near $1.50 per LIT on a fully diluted basis. The number exists because the useful figure is almost never published. Projects announce what they raised and at what valuation; they rarely announce what an investor paid per token. Implied FDV fills that gap with the one relationship that is usually available, valuation over supply.
The point of doing it is comparison against the current price. At the time of Tokenomist's Lighter analysis, LIT traded around $2.29, above the $1.50 implied entry, so investors were in profit on paper. Blur ran the other way: its February 2023 round at a $1B valuation worked out to an estimated $0.33 per BLUR, and with the token at $0.32 heading into the June 2023 cliff, only the seed round was in profit. That comparison is the whole reason the metric exists. It sets an anchor for where a cohort came in, which is the first input into any read of how a cliff might behave.
The estimate breaks in specific, identifiable ways. Lighter's Series B was structured as equity plus token warrants rather than a straight token sale, so Tokenomist explicitly treats the $1.50 as entry-price context and not as a cost-basis fact. Company equity rounds do not convert at all: StarkWare raised $100 million in a May 2022 Series D at an $8 billion valuation, up from $2 billion at its previous raise, and those numbers priced the company, not a per-STRK entry. Total supply can also move after the round, and a valuation may be quoted pre-money or post-money without saying which. Each of these puts error bars on the output that the clean division hides.
When the per-token price is disclosed, implied FDV should reconcile with it, and that is a useful check. PUMP raised at a $4B FDV at $0.004 per token against a fixed 1 trillion cap, so both directions agree. It also gives you a durable benchmark: by mid-2026 PUMP's fully diluted value sat around $1.29B, roughly 68% below the $4B ICO-implied valuation, a comparison that only works because the entry number was pinned down at the start. Treat implied FDV as the anchor for an entry-versus-now frame, not as evidence about lockups or sell pressure, which come from the vesting schedule instead.
Real World Examples
Lighter: A $1.5B Round Against a 1B Supply
View →Lighter raised about $89M across two rounds, with the Series B taking $68M at roughly a $1.5B valuation. Divided by the 1 billion LIT supply, that implies an entry near $1.50 per token, against a market price around $2.29 at the time of the analysis. Because the round was structured as equity plus token warrants, Tokenomist flags the figure as entry-price context rather than a cost-basis fact.
Blur: The Implied Entry Sat Above the Market
View →Blur's second round raised $15M to $30M in February 2023 at a $1 billion valuation, which worked out to an estimated $0.33 per BLUR. By the time of the June 2023 cliff unlock the token traded at $0.32, meaning the later round was underwater and only the March 2022 seed round was in profit.
PUMP: Implied and Disclosed Prices That Agree
View →PUMP's July 2025 ICO priced at $0.004 per token against a fixed 1 trillion cap, which is the same $4B fully diluted figure the headline valuation implies. That pinned entry stayed useful afterwards: by mid-2026 the token's fully diluted value of about $1.29B sat roughly 68% below the ICO-implied valuation.
StarkWare: An Equity Valuation That Does Not Convert
View →StarkWare raised $100 million in a Series D in May 2022 at an $8 billion valuation, up from $2 billion at the previous raise. These are valuations of the company, priced in an equity round, so dividing them by STRK supply would produce a number that looks like an entry price but is not one.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate implied FDV?
Treat the round's headline valuation as the implied fully diluted valuation, then divide it by the token's total supply to get the implied entry price. Lighter's Series B at about a $1.5B valuation against a 1 billion LIT supply gives roughly $1.50 per token, and multiplying that price back by supply returns the same $1.5B. Use total supply rather than circulating supply: a round valuation is a claim about the whole project, so pairing it with a partial float would understate the implied entry.
Is implied FDV the same as investor cost basis?
No. Cost basis is what a cohort actually paid per token, which is sometimes published for public sales and airdrops. Implied FDV is a reconstruction used when that figure is missing, and it inherits every ambiguity in the round structure. Lighter's Series B mixed equity and token warrants, so the implied $1.50 describes where investors came in economically without being the price they paid for tokens.
Why would the implied entry price sit above the market price?
Because the token has fallen below the valuation the round was struck at. Blur's February 2023 round implied about $0.33 per BLUR while the token traded at $0.32 into its June 2023 cliff. That matters for unlock analysis: a cohort that is underwater has a weaker incentive to sell into the unlock than one sitting on a large multiple.
When should I not convert a round valuation into a token price?
When the round priced equity rather than tokens. StarkWare's $8 billion Series D valuation in May 2022 was a company valuation, so no per-STRK entry falls out of it. The same caution applies to rounds that mix instruments, to raises where the total supply changed afterwards, and to valuations quoted without saying whether they are pre-money or post-money.
Related Terms
fully diluted valuationinvestor cost basisraise amounttge valuationmarket cap vs fdvlow float high fdv
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