Tokenomics那些事：为啥有些coin要被「冻结」？

Question

Recently, many new coins launched will have a “lock-up period”. What is a lock-up period? In simple terms, it means: your coin cannot be sold for a period of time. This sounds very frustrating, but it is actually a clever design.

How to Play Token Distribution Without Crashing?

Taking TRUMP coin as an example: the total supply is 1 billion coins, of which 200 million are currently in circulation, leaving 800 million held by companies associated with Trump, to be gradually released in 8 batches over the next three years. Why is this being done?

Preventing a Crash: Dumping 800 million coins at once would cause an immediate market collapse. Releasing in batches gives the market time to digest.

Benchmark Case: PUMP coin has a supply of 15 billion paired with a lock-up period of 48-72 hours, which essentially provides retail investors with a cooling-off period — to prevent a bunch of people from chasing the price high and then collectively crashing the market.

Can the lock-up period really stabilize the price?

Theoretically Useful:

Reduce short-term selling pressure to prevent a “one-day tour” market.
dYdX locks its governance coins until the end of 2023, sending a signal to the market that “we are optimistic in the long term”, and this move can also avoid the pitfalls of U.S. securities regulation.

Reality is heart-wrenching:

TRUMP dropped from a high of $73.43 to $27.38, a decline of over 60%, and the lock-up period couldn't save the price.
The root cause is: if the coin itself has no value and is only supported by popularity, any mechanism is useless.

Who has the power to decide on coins?

Centralized Risk (TRUMP):

Trump's company holds 80% of the coins.
Although the lock-up period can alleviate this, such a structure is inherently prone to suspicion of “institutions harvesting retail investors.”

**Decentralized Excellence (Magic Eden's $ME):

50.2% allocated to the community
The community has a voice, and price fluctuations are more stable instead.

Practical Use vs Pure Speculation

TRUMP's Predicament: Essentially a meme coin, it can only survive by relying on the popularity of political figures. Once the heat dies down, no locking period can save it.

The Ambition of PUMP: Transforming from a meme coin factory into a Web3 ecosystem, incorporating governance rights and practical functions. This is essential to support long-term value.

What is the bottom line?

Lock-up period + Diversified allocation + Practical application = Only then can one survive longer.

Just having a lock-up period is not enough; without real application scenarios and community support, the coin will ultimately degrade into a depreciating NFT. When evaluating a project, don't just look at the mechanisms; the key is to see if there is a team behind it that genuinely wants to get things done.

Risk Warning: Token investment carries significant risks; do your homework and don't rely on a single indicator.