TGE float

TGE float is the share of total supply that is unlocked and tradeable at the moment a token generation event completes. It is the first circulating-supply number a market sees and the one most projects publish. On its own it is close to useless, because it mixes tokens nobody can sell with tokens held at zero cost basis and reports them as the same thing.

Float is a container, not a quantity of sell pressure. Two projects can both publish 12% and have completely different launch days, because what fills the 12% decides who can sell, at what price, and whether they want to.

What counts as float at the moment of the mint

Float is the ratio of freely tradeable supply to total or maximum supply. Tokenomist states the general property directly: a low float means a small portion of tokens is available for trading, which makes price more sensitive to large orders and more exposed to sharp moves when locked tokens unlock.¹ The TGE version of that ratio is measured at one instant, the moment trading opens.

Mechanically it is a sum. Take every allocation bucket carrying no cliff and no vesting at launch: the public sale, any day-one airdrop, exchange and market-maker inventory, the liquidity that seeds the pool, and any team or advisor tranche that launched fully vested. Everything with a cliff or a vest sits outside it until its schedule releases it.

The range across real launches is wide enough that no benchmark is meaningful. Tokenomist observes that some tokens open with under 5% float and others above 50%.¹ Anyone quoting a standard figure is describing their own preference, not an industry norm.

The pool sits inside the number and cannot sell

Tokens deposited into a launch liquidity pool are counted as circulating by almost every tracker, and they are structurally incapable of selling. They are the counterparty to selling. When somebody sells, those tokens are what they sell into, and the pool's token balance goes up, not down.

That is not a rounding issue. On a typical launch the pool holds a quarter or more of the headline float, so a 12% published number can contain three points of supply that will never appear on the ask side under its own initiative.

The same treatment applies in the other direction to market-maker inventory. Tokens sitting with a market maker under a quoting obligation behave differently from tokens sitting in a retail wallet, because the holder is contractually there to make two-sided prices, not to exit.

Decomposing a 12% headline float

Take a project with 100,000,000 total supply, a $0.10 launch price and a published TGE float of 12%, which is 12,000,000 tokens. Split it into what is actually inside: 5,000,000 to public-sale buyers who paid $0.06, 3,000,000 airdropped at zero cost, 3,000,000 deposited into the liquidity pool, and 1,000,000 held as exchange and market-maker inventory.

Now read each bucket for behaviour rather than size. The pool cannot sell, so three points come out immediately. Market-maker inventory is quoting, not exiting, so another point comes out. That leaves 8,000,000 tokens, 8% of supply rather than 12%, held by people who can choose to sell.

Inside those 8,000,000 the incentives still differ. The public-sale buyers are 67% ahead at the opening price, which is a real reason to take some off. The airdrop recipients have no cost basis at all, so every price clears for them. Same headline, two very different supply behaviours, and the second one is the group that sets the first hour.

Scroll to see the full diagram

Two of these four slices cannot or will not sell into the open. A third of the published float is doing something other than what the number implies.

Float sets sensitivity, not direction

A low float concentrates price impact. Every order, buy or sell, moves further against a smaller tradeable base, so low-float launches look strong on thin demand and fragile on thin supply. That cuts both ways and neither direction is a prediction about any specific token.

The consequential relationship is not float against supply, it is sellable float against pool depth. That ratio determines what a full exit by the unlocked holders does to price, and it is computable to the dollar before launch. A team that has run that calculation has chosen a launch profile. A team that has not has also chosen one, without reading it.

BitGo's framing of what makes a launch work is the same point from the practitioner side: a TGE is defined by how much supply enters the market, how much stays locked, and when future supply becomes available.² Float is only the first of those three numbers.

Every unlock rewrites the number

The TGE float is a snapshot with a short shelf life. Cliff timers and supply mechanics all start at the TGE itself, which makes the entire release calendar knowable from day one.³ Every unlock event then raises float, and cliff unlocks in particular can double or triple the effective number overnight.¹

That compounding is what makes a headline float misleading over any horizon longer than launch week. A 12% opening float that reaches 40% by month thirteen is a different asset from one that reaches 18%, and the difference was written into term sheets long before either number existed.

The trajectory is the useful artefact. Build the month-by-month float table across every bucket and read the difficult months off it while the terms can still be renegotiated.

What to publish, and what to model

Publish the decomposition, not the headline. Naming the buckets and their cost bases costs nothing and it removes the most common accusation levelled at launches, which is that the float number was constructed to look conservative. The information is readable onchain within a day anyway.

Model three things privately: sellable float against pool depth at open, the same ratio recomputed at each unlock date, and what the treasury can fund if depth needs supporting. All three are arithmetic and all three are cheaper to fix before signatures than after.

Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any token, and none of it predicts what any price will do. Float is a design parameter. What the market makes of it depends on whether the business underneath the token is worth owning.

Common questions

What is TGE float?

TGE float is the proportion of total supply that is unlocked and tradeable at the moment a token generation event completes. It sums every allocation bucket with no cliff and no vesting at launch, including the public sale, day-one airdrops, exchange inventory and pool liquidity. It is the first circulating-supply figure a market sees, and it says nothing on its own about who among those holders actually intends to sell.

Is a low float good or bad for a token launch?

Neither by itself. A low float concentrates price impact, so a smaller tradeable base moves further on any given order in both directions, and every later unlock lands as a proportionally larger supply increase.¹ What matters is the ratio between sellable float and pool depth, which is computable exactly before launch. The observed range is wide, spanning under 5% to above 50%.¹

Does liquidity pool supply count in TGE float?

Trackers generally count it as circulating, but it cannot sell. Pool tokens are the counterparty to selling: when a holder exits, the pool's token balance rises. On many launches the pool holds a quarter or more of the published float, so subtracting it changes the picture materially. Exchange and market-maker inventory deserves the same treatment, since a quoting obligation is not an exit.

How does TGE float change over time?

It only rises, and on a schedule fixed at the TGE. Every vesting clock measures from the same timestamp, so the full release calendar is knowable from day one, and cliff unlocks can double or triple effective float overnight.¹ The useful artefact is the month-by-month float table across every bucket, which shows the difficult months while the terms are still negotiable.

See Token Generation Event Strategy Guide for how this applies in practice.

Sources

What is Token Float? How Free Float Ratio Affects Price Sensitivity
Tokenomist, 2026
Float as the ratio of freely tradeable to total supply, the price-sensitivity consequence of a low float, the observed range from under 5% to above 50%, and the effect of cliff unlocks on effective float.
Token Generation Events Explained: Custody, Liquidity, and What Comes Next
BitGo, 2026
Frames a TGE by how much supply enters the market, how much remains locked, and when future supply becomes available.
Token Generation Event (TGE)
Tokenomist, 2026
Confirms the TGE as the point at which cliff timers and supply mechanics begin, which is why every float projection measures from that timestamp.

Last reviewed 2026-08

Related terms

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.

Book a discovery call

100+ projects advised. Complete tokenomics in 4 to 6 weeks.