According to widely circulated data from Messari, 11.2 million Solana (SOL) from the FTX bankruptcy estate will unlock tomorrow.
By Saturday, Solana’s circulating supply will increase 2.2%, and well over $1 billion of these newly-unlocked tokens will be available for immediate sale.
Solana’s next two unlocks are far smaller: 12,700 SOL on April 1 and 73,700 SOL on May 1. All three of these unlocks are tokens held by the FTX estate, which is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.
Why FTX owns so much of Solana’s supply
Anyone who has been in crypto for less than three years might not know why FTX owns so much SOL. Prior to his December 2022 indictment and subsequent imprisonment, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) founded the FTX exchange and was, in his heyday, one of crypto’s biggest investors.
Before it went bankrupt in November 2022, SBF had FTX heavily invested in Solana. SBF had already negotiated a deal to own 2.5% of Solana’s locked supply and spent so much time promoting SOL that it was commonly known to be a “Sam coin” alongside his other favorites like FTT, SRM, OXY, and MAPS.
SBF even offered to buy SOL in the open market in an attempt to defend a price floor at one time.
Read more: Creditors due $12.7B from FTX and Alameda 21 months after bankruptcy
Other allocations of Solana’s supply included a community reserve (40.8%), early team members (13.4%), seed round investors (13.3%), founding sale members (9.8%), and the Solana Foundation (11%). Most of these allocations unlocked prior to February 2021.
Solana unlock is going to claims buyers, not FTX
It’s important to note that Saturday’s unlock will benefit not FTX victims but claims buyers like Pantera Capital and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Asset Management.
To be clear, FTX’s bankruptcy estate has already sold rights to Saturday’s SOL unlock. After FTX and its unlicensed hedge fund Alameda Research went bankrupt, Galaxy purchased claims during bankruptcy proceedings on most of the remaining locked tokens at a value of $64 per SOL.
That purchase includes most of Saturday’s expected unlock of 11.2 million SOL.
Galaxy Managing Director Kelly Greer has preemptively dismissed concerns about any major market impact, pointing out that its holdings represent a small percentage of the total supply.
Moreover, and although Greer didn’t specify whether Galaxy intends to immediately sell, she cited the widely publicized knowledge of the upcoming token transfer. In Greer’s view, investors have already priced in the possible effect of such a large token unlock.
In summary, SBF and his bankrupt companies FTX and Alameda are still affecting the crypto markets today. On Saturday, bankruptcy claims buyers like Galaxy will take possession of FTX’s 11.2 million SOL. The more than $1 billion unlock is scheduled to occur on March 1.
Unfortunately, Solana has already lost approximately one-third of its value this year. Galaxy might sell or exercise discretion to hold onto its new investment.
