Investor Cost Basis
Investor cost basis is the price each cohort paid per token: seed, private, public sale, or nothing at all in the case of an airdrop. It decides whether an unlock frees holders sitting on large gains or holders who are underwater, and therefore how much of the released supply is likely to be sold.
TradFi parallel: Like a cap table where every round carries its own entry price. When the lockup expires, the Series A holder who paid $2 and the IPO buyer who paid $40 face the same liquidity event with opposite incentives, even though the stock is identical.
Key Takeaways
- 01Cost basis is per cohort, not per token: seed, private, public sale, and airdrop recipients each entered at a different price, and the gap to the current price sets each group's incentive to sell
- 02Distinct from raise amount, which is an aggregate header stat: two projects with identical totals can carry very different per round entry prices
- 03The split inside one token can be extreme: at PUMP's July 12, 2026 insider cliff, public ICO buyers sat roughly 62% below their $0.004 entry while insiders held a far lower cost basis
- 04Drawdowns do not erase insider profit: SAND was down about 95% from its $8.40 high at the August 2023 unlock, with private investors still estimated at 78x to 100x
- 05An underwater cohort weakens the sell-through assumption: before BLUR's June 2023 cliff the February round's estimated $0.33 entry sat above the $0.32 market price, leaving only the seed round in profit
- 06Airdrop recipients have a cost basis of effectively zero and public sale prices are published, so both cohorts need a different read from private rounds
How It Works
Investor cost basis is the price a given cohort paid per token. A project's cap table is rarely one entry price: a seed round at one valuation, a private or strategic round at another, a public sale or ICO at a third, and airdrop recipients who paid nothing at all. Raise amount, the aggregate header stat, does not capture this. Two projects that each raised the same total can have entirely different per round entry prices, depending on how many tokens each round bought. What decides sell incentive at an unlock is not the total raised, but the gap between each cohort's entry price and the current market price.
The asymmetry inside a single token can be extreme. PUMP raised at a $4 billion fully diluted valuation in July 2025, an implied $0.004 per token. Heading into its July 12, 2026 insider cliff the implied price was around $0.00152, roughly 62% below that ICO price, so public ICO buyers were underwater at the same event that released insider tokens carrying a far lower cost basis. The Sandbox shows the same split surviving a brutal drawdown: at its August 2023 unlock SAND had fallen about 95% from its $8.40 all-time high to roughly $0.40, and private investors were still estimated at 78x to 100x on their entry. A collapsed chart does not mean insiders are out of profit.
The reverse case is just as important. Before BLUR's June 2023 cliff, which released 196 million tokens against a circulating supply of roughly 493 million, Tokenomist estimated the February 2023 round at $0.33 per BLUR while the token traded at $0.32, leaving only the seed round in profit. When most of an unlocking cohort sits at or below its entry price, the standard sell-through assumption weakens. The spread across tokens in a single month can be equally wide: the June 2023 unlock report put private investor ROI at up to 50x for STEPN, in the range of 5x to 8x for IMX, and potentially above 50x for HBAR.
Not every cohort has a round valuation. Airdrop recipients have a cost basis of effectively zero, so any price is a gain. On-chain data from BLUR's season 1 airdrop showed 124,631 wallets receiving an average of 2,760 BLUR each, with the top quartile receiving 93% of all tokens distributed (319 million of 344 million) but holding only 3% of what they received, while the bottom 75% received far less and still held about half of it. The report is careful to note that the gap cannot all be confirmed as sales. Public sale cohorts sit in between, with a published entry price that makes their position the easiest of all to check. In practice, read cost basis alongside the beneficiary category attached to each unlock: as the May 2026 PYTH digest put it, private sale recipients who purchased at below-market prices are the most liquid and potentially most motivated sellers in the list.
Real World Examples
PUMP: Public Buyers Underwater, Insiders Far Below
View →PUMP raised at a $4 billion fully diluted valuation in July 2025, an implied $0.004 per token. Ahead of the July 12, 2026 insider cliff the implied price was about $0.00152, roughly 62% under the ICO price and about 83% below the September 2025 all-time high of $0.0088. Public ICO buyers therefore held above market while the unlocking insiders were locked in at a far lower cost basis.
The Sandbox: 95% Drawdown, Investors Still at 78x to 100x
View →At the August 14, 2023 unlock, 322 million SAND (about $134 million, roughly 16% of circulating supply) was released in the last private investor tranche. SAND had fallen about 95% from its $8.40 November 2021 high to roughly $0.40, yet the private investors' estimated ROI was still in the 78x to 100x range. The drawdown changed the headline, not the cohort's incentive.
BLUR: Only the Seed Round in Profit
View →BLUR's June 15, 2023 cliff released 196 million tokens against roughly 493 million circulating, the only cliff for investor, team, and advisor allocations. The February 2023 round's estimated cost was $0.33 per BLUR while BLUR traded at $0.32, meaning only the seed round, which raised $11 million in March 2022, was in profit going into the event.
STEPN and IMX: Wide ROI Spread in One Month
View →Tokenomist's June 2023 unlock report singled out private investor allocations across three tokens with very different multiples: up to 50x for STEPN, a more modest 5x to 8x for IMX, and potentially above 50x for HBAR. Same month, same category of holder, and materially different pressure behind each release.
Pyth: Cost Basis as the Cohort Filter
View →The May 19, 2026 PYTH unlock, $95.24 million and 36.96% of circulating supply, spanned four allocations. Tokenomist singled out Private Sales recipients, early backers who purchased at below-market prices, as the most liquid and potentially most motivated sellers, with ecosystem and publisher allocations judged less likely to liquidate immediately.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is investor cost basis different from raise amount?
Raise amount is the aggregate: total capital raised across all rounds, shown as a header stat. Cost basis is per round: what each cohort paid per token. Two projects with the same raise can have completely different entry prices depending on how many tokens each round bought, and it is the per round price relative to today's market that determines who is sitting on gains at an unlock.
How do I estimate a cohort's cost basis?
Work from the disclosed round size and the token amount allocated to that round, which implies a price per token. Tokenomist's unlock analyses publish these estimates where the data supports it, such as the $0.33 per BLUR estimate for the February 2023 round or the $0.004 per token implied by PUMP's $4 billion ICO valuation. Where rounds are undisclosed or partially reported, treat the figure as an estimate rather than a fact.
If a token trades below the investor entry price, is the unlock safe?
It is less dangerous, not safe. An underwater cohort has a weaker profit-taking motive, which is why BLUR's June 2023 cliff was read differently from a comparable unlock with investors far in profit. But the supply still enters circulation, funds with distribution or reporting obligations can move tokens regardless of price, and other cohorts in the same unlock may be sitting on very different multiples.
What is the cost basis of an airdrop?
Effectively zero, since recipients paid nothing for the tokens, so any market price is a gain. That is why airdrop cohorts are treated separately from purchased allocations. BLUR's season 1 airdrop is a useful reference point: 124,631 wallets received an average of 2,760 BLUR, and the top quartile that received 93% of the distribution was later holding only 3% of what it received, though the report notes not all of that gap can be confirmed as sales.
Which cohort usually has the lowest cost basis?
Founding teams and seed round investors, which is exactly why insider unlocks are tracked separately. The insider unlock filter isolates team and private investor releases on the grounds that these groups typically received tokens at the lowest cost basis and in the largest individual allocations, giving them both the strongest economic motive and the largest blocks to sell.
Related Terms
insider unlockraise amountbeneficiary categoryairdropsupply pressuretoken allocationimplied fdvunlock cohort mix
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