Linear vesting releases a bucket's tokens in equal increments over the vesting period after the cliff, rather than in lumps or irregular tranches. It smooths sell pressure into a predictable stream, which is why most team and investor buckets use it. The alternative, milestone vesting, ties unlocks to delivery instead of the calendar.
Linear vesting smooths the delivery of sell pressure. It does not eliminate it. A smoother curve is not automatically a safe one.
How it works
If a bucket holds 100 million tokens with a 12-month cliff and 36-month linear vest, then after the cliff roughly 2.78 million tokens release each month for 36 months.
On-chain this is usually a smart contract with a time-based release curve, or monthly batch transfers governed by a multisig. The contract approach is preferred for transparency, because any holder can verify the schedule by reading contract state instead of trusting the team's self-reporting.
Why it matters
Linear vesting creates a predictable, modelable supply addition each month. Markets price known future supply far more efficiently than lumpy, unpredictable unlocks.
That is why professional analysis favors linear vesting for insider buckets over tranche schedules. A constant monthly release adds supply the market absorbs incrementally, while a 12-month tranche hitting at once is a step-change in circulating supply that market depth must absorb in a narrow window.
Common mistake
Teams conflate linear vesting with low sell pressure. A bucket that is 20% of total supply releasing linearly over 24 months still adds roughly 0.83% of total supply to circulation every month.
If the emission schedule is heavy in that same period, the combined supply addition can exceed what organic demand absorbs. Linear vesting must be modeled against the full supply picture, not evaluated in isolation.
See Token Allocation and Vesting Design for how this applies in practice.
Know the terms but not sure how they apply to your project? That is what an engagement is for. We design, document, and stress-test the whole token economy inside the Tokenomics Data Room.
80+ projects advised. Complete tokenomics in 4 to 6 weeks.