Tezos (XTZ) Tokenomics, Unlock Schedule and Vesting Chart

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Tezos (XTZ) Token Unlock & Vesting Schedule

The unlock chart above provides a clear visual overview of the Tezos (XTZ) 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 XTZ 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

Tezos tokenomics at a glance

The XTZ token secures the network, pays fees, and powers governance. With the Paris upgrade, Tezos introduced Adaptive Issuance: instead of a fixed inflation rate, issuance varies within a band that expands over time based on the share of XTZ that is staked. This aligns token issuance with network security needs. Quebec refined this mechanism further (“Adaptive Maximum”) to minimize issuance near the target staking ratio. (research-development.nomadic-labs.com)

Staking vs delegation

Tezos historically popularized “delegation,” where holders could delegate staking rights to bakers while keeping their XTZ liquid. Since Paris, Tezos also supports explicit “staking,” where users lock XTZ alongside a baker’s stake. Under Quebec’s economics, stakers earn roughly 3x the rewards of delegators, and delegated funds now carry lower weight (one‑third) in baking rights and voting power. Rio then shortened cycles to 1 day, making staking flows faster. (research-development.nomadic-labs.com)

Rewards that boost Layer 2

To grow rollup throughput, Rio allocates 10% of participation rewards to DAL activity. This links validator incentives directly to Layer 2 scalability and helps apps on Etherlink and other rollups benefit from lower costs and higher capacity. (tezos.com)

What drives XTZ utility and XTZ price narratives

Demand to use apps (fees), staking participation (issuance and yields), and the cadence of protocol upgrades all shape utility. Ecosystem traction—Tezos DeFi, NFTs, gaming on Layer 1 and Etherlink—also influences how markets talk about XTZ price over time, even as real‑time figures change constantly. (tezos.com)

Assumptions

Supply is uncapped; total_supply set to null.
Tezos has ongoing issuance via Proof-of-Stake rewards, Liquidity Baking subsidy, and possible governance invoices.
PoS rewards pre-Paris modeled at 80 tez per minute.
Tezos documentation describes a per-minute reward budget of 80 tez prior to Adaptive Issuance; block-time reductions did not change the per-minute budget.
Start date for PoS rewards set to 2018-07-20.
Tezos betanet launched 2018-06-30 with no block rewards for the first seven cycles (~19–20 days); rewards assumed to begin around July 20, 2018.
Paris→Quebec and Quebec→present PoS issuance approximated using the historical ~80 tez/min budget for totals.
Paris introduced Adaptive Issuance (dynamic issuance based on staked ratio). For exact monthly amounts, indexers or the RPC endpoint /issuance/expected_issuance must be used; this dataset uses a conservative continuity assumption for aggregate totals only.
Liquidity Baking subsidy modeled at 5 tez per minute from 2021-08-06 through 2025-10-12.
Granada introduced LB; Paris explicitly sets the subsidy as 5 tez per minute, independent of block time.
Protocol invoice dates for Athens and Kathmandu are set to the activation month (day approximated as the 1st).
Amendment history provides month/year; invoices are one-off mints at activation. Exact day not critical for monthly modeling.

Sources (10)

Allocations

Fundraiser Participants (Genesis)

607,489,040.89 tokens

Cliff: Jun 30, 2018 — NaN% of allocation

Genesis allocation to fundraiser participants; immediately spendable upon activation/claim.

Early Backers & Contractors (Genesis)

3,156,502.85 tokens

Cliff: Jun 30, 2018 — NaN% of allocation

Genesis allocation to early backers and contractors.

Tezos Foundation (Genesis vesting)

76,330,692.97 tokens

Linear vesting: Jun 30, 2018 - Jun 30, 2022 (monthly)

Vests monthly over 4 years per Tezos Foundation; modeled as linear monthly vesting from genesis.

Dynamic Ledger Solutions (Genesis vesting)

76,330,692.97 tokens

Linear vesting: Jun 30, 2018 - Jun 30, 2022 (monthly)

Vests monthly over 4 years per Tezos Foundation; modeled as linear monthly vesting from genesis.

PoS Validator Rewards (network issuance)

304,243,200 tokens

Linear vesting: Jul 20, 2018 - Aug 6, 2021 (monthly)

Pre-Granada era. Modeled at 80 tez/min (baking + endorsing rewards). First ~7 cycles after genesis had no rewards; start modeled when rewards began.

Linear vesting: Aug 6, 2021 - Mar 29, 2023 (monthly)

Granada→Mumbai. Rewards parameterization changed but nominal issuance target kept ~80 tez/min. Granada also halved block time to 30s; per-minute budget unchanged.

Linear vesting: Mar 29, 2023 - Jun 5, 2024 (monthly)

Mumbai→Paris. Block time reduced to 15s; per-minute reward budget remained ~80 tez/min pre-Adaptive Issuance.

Linear vesting: Jun 5, 2024 - Jan 20, 2025 (monthly)

Paris (Adaptive Issuance activated). For the initial 6-month transition, issuance bounded between ~4.5% and 5.5% annually; modeled here at historical ~80 tez/min equivalent for continuity. See assumptions; use chain RPC for exacts.

Linear vesting: Jan 20, 2025 - Oct 12, 2025 (monthly)

Quebec (8s blocks) with Adaptive Issuance + adaptive maximum bound. Modeled at ~80 tez/min as a placeholder for total issuance budget; actual is dynamically adjusted by staked ratio—see assumptions and use RPC /issuance/expected_issuance for precision.

Liquidity Baking Subsidy

11,001,600 tokens

Linear vesting: Aug 6, 2021 - Oct 12, 2025 (monthly)

Protocol-level subsidy minted to the LB CPMM pool. Subsidy fixed at 5 tez per minute (per Paris), independent of block time; earlier docs equivalently 2.5 tez/block at 30s. Continues unless toggled by governance.

Protocol Invoices (governance-minted one-offs)

3,100 tokens

Cliff: May 1, 2019 — NaN% of allocation

Athens upgrade included an example developer invoice of 100 tez paid at activation (month approximated to May 2019).

Cliff: Sep 1, 2022 — NaN% of allocation

Kathmandu invoice: 3,000 tez paid at activation (month approximated to September 2022).

Last Updated: 10/12/2025 00:55 UTC

Description

#143

Tezos is a smart contract platform that uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and an on-chain governance model to enable network upgrades without hard forks. It also supports formal verification of smart contracts to ensure their security and correctness.

Sector:	Layer 1
Blockchain:	Other L1

2018

POS

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