Most tokens reserve a large share of supply for teams, early backers and treasuries, released gradually rather than at once. The schedule is public and its effects are largely predictable.
Locks exist to prevent an immediate exit
Without restrictions, everyone holding a pre-launch allocation could sell into the first day of trading, which would collapse the price and end the project's credibility.
A vesting schedule prevents that by making tokens claimable only over time, typically after an initial period during which nothing at all can be moved.
The lock is usually enforced by a contract rather than a promise, so the timetable can be read directly from the chain by anyone.
The cliff concentrates supply into a single date
A cliff is a date on which a large tranche becomes available at once, followed by smaller regular releases.
Markets often anticipate it. Traders position ahead of the date and the price can weaken well before any locked token has actually moved.
Whether selling materialises depends on the holders, but the market has to price the possibility either way, and uncertainty alone is enough to depress the price.
Cost basis determines how the release is treated
Early participants generally acquired tokens at a small fraction of the listing price, so they remain profitable at levels where later buyers are not.
That asymmetry means their decision to sell is not driven by the same considerations. A price that looks like a loss to the market can still be an excellent outcome for them.
Funds with reporting obligations may also be required to distribute or realise positions on their own timetable rather than according to market conditions.
Emissions run alongside vesting
Vesting releases tokens that already exist. Emissions create new ones for staking rewards or liquidity programmes, and both add to available supply at the same time.
Adding the two together gives the true rate at which sellable supply grows, which is often far higher than either figure suggests alone.
A project can therefore be diluting steadily even during a period when no cliff appears on the unlock chart, because the emissions run continuously in the background.
Reading a schedule before it matters
Unlock timetables are published in tokenomics documentation and can usually be verified against the vesting contract, which is the version that actually governs what can move.
What matters is the size of each release relative to daily trading volume. A tranche that dwarfs typical volume cannot be absorbed quietly regardless of who holds it.
The releases that pass without incident are generally the small and regular ones, because the market has time to take the supply gradually rather than facing it in a single session.