What Is Vesting?
Definition
Vesting is a schedule that locks tokens and releases them gradually over time — preventing founders and early investors from selling their entire allocation immediately after launch.
Vesting protects token holders from insider dumps. Instead of receiving all tokens at once, team members and investors get them on a schedule.
- Cliff vesting — tokens locked for X months (the "cliff"), then all unlock at once. Example: 12-month cliff.
- Linear vesting — tokens unlock gradually each day/week/month over a period. Example: 24-month linear vesting.
- Cliff + linear — combine both. Example: 12-month cliff, then 24-month linear unlock. Industry standard for team tokens.
- Team/founders — 12-month cliff + 24-36 month linear vesting
- Investors/advisors — 6-month cliff + 12-18 month linear vesting
- Community allocation — usually no vesting (immediate distribution via airdrops or fair launch)
For CoinDevTools token creators, vesting requires a separate smart contract or multisig wallet — the base SPL/ERC-20 token doesn't have built-in vesting. You create the token, then lock team tokens in a vesting contract.
Related Terms
Tokenomics
Tokenomics is the economic design of a cryptocurrency token — covering supply, distribution, utility, incentive mechanisms, and how these factors affect the token's value over time.
Token Supply (Total, Circulating, Max)
Token supply refers to how many tokens exist: total supply is all tokens ever created, circulating supply is tokens in public wallets, and max supply is the hard cap that can ever exist.
ICO (Initial Coin Offering)
An ICO is a fundraising method where a project sells tokens to early investors before launch — similar to an IPO but for crypto tokens, often with less regulation.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)
A DAO is an organization governed by smart contracts and token-holder votes rather than a board of directors — members collectively make decisions through on-chain proposals and voting.