Qtum (QTUM)
Unlock Schedule
Qtum (QTUM) Token Unlock & Vesting Schedule
The unlock chart above provides a clear visual overview of the Qtum (QTUM) token release schedule, showing when and how tokens enter circulation across investor, team, treasury, and community allocations. Understanding these tokenomics dynamics is critical for evaluating potential supply pressure, inflation impact, and market liquidity over time — key factors that can influence QTUM price performance.
Each color segment in the chart corresponds to a specific allocation group described in the Allocations section below. Underlying assumptions and data models used to reconstruct this schedule are explained in detail under Assumptions, while broader utility insights and token use cases are covered in Tokenomics & Utility.
Tokenomics & Utility
Supply and emissions
Qtum’s total supply is fixed at 107,822,406 QTUM. New QTUM enter circulation primarily through staking rewards, which are scheduled to halve roughly every four years. The first halving occurred on December 1, 2021, and the next halving (to 0.25 QTUM per block) was scheduled around December 2025. With FastLane, rewards arrive more frequently because blocks come every ~32 seconds. (qtum.org)
The project’s early sale distributed a majority of tokens to the public, with the remainder allocated to the foundation, team, and early backers under vesting schedules typical of that era. This structure aimed to balance community ownership with long‑term development funding. (prnewswire.com)
What QTUM does on‑chain
- Gas and fees: QTUM pays for contract execution and transaction fees. Unused gas is refunded to the sender once the transaction is confirmed.
- Staking: Holders can stake directly with the Qtum Core wallet or delegate using “offline staking,” where a “super staker” performs validation while delegators keep custody of their coins.
- Governance inputs: Through DGP, governing contracts can consider votes from designated keys or groups to adjust base parameters, giving token‑holders and other stakeholders a structured voice. (qtum.gitbook.io)
Qtum’s docs also provide recommended gas settings for common actions. Because DGP can change minimum gas price and related limits, costs tend to remain predictable and resistant to spam. (qtum.gitbook.io)
Assumptions
- Public Sale and Early Supporter allocations unlock on 2017-03-23 (crowdsale end).
Whitepaper states no lock-up for these; PR confirms sale completed March 23, 2017.
- Team allocation modeled as linear monthly vesting over 4 years from 2017-03-23 to 2021-03-23.
Whitepaper: 'Team 12,000,000 distributed in four years' without finer granularity; linear monthly is a standard approximation.
- Academic Research/Education and Business Development unlocks occur as annual cliffs each March 2018–2021.
Whitepaper specifies 4-year lock-up and annual March unlocks with exact tranche sizes (2.25M for Academic; 7M/6M/3.5M/3.5M for BD).
- PoS rewards before FastLane computed exactly from block counts (blocks 5,001–845,000 at 4 QTUM).
Halving/upgrade PR specifies FastLane at block 845,000; initial genesis coins created in first 5,000 coinbase blocks.
- PoS rewards between FastLane and first halving computed from exact block heights (845,000 to 1,427,004).
Official news release states first halving at block 1,427,004; FastLane at block 845,000; 1 QTUM per block in this interval.
- Post-2021 halving rewards modeled as 3,942,000-block (~4-year) periods at halved subsidies, seven halvings total then zero.
2020 New Whitepaper: 'block reward is halved every 4 years, a total of seven times and then set to zero'; blog confirms dates for the next two halvings.
- Total supply ≈ 107,853,207.125 QTUM.
Derived from: 100,000,000 genesis + 3,360,000 (pre-FastLane) + 582,004 (FastLane→first halving) + 3,911,203.125 (sum of seven halving periods after 2021). Future schedule subject to governance/parameter changes.
- 1. https://qtumorg.s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/Qtum_New_Whitepaper_en.pdf
- 2. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qtum-shatters-records-raising-156-million-during-innovative-token-crowdsale-300428471.html
- 3. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qtum-ignition-tackles-scalability-with-first-decentralized-governance-protocol-300520075.html
- 4. https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/106275/Qtum-Goes-Through-First-Halving-Block-Reward-Now-Down-to-0.5-QTUM
- 5. https://qtum.org/blog/understanding-staking-on-qtum