Cliff
A waiting period at the start of a token vesting schedule during which no tokens unlock at all. After the cliff ends, tokens begin releasing according to the vesting schedule.
Also known as: vesting cliff
Cliffs exist because most token allocations to insiders, investors, and team members need to survive at least one market cycle before they start flowing into the market. A cliff enforces patience. During the cliff period (typically 6-24 months) the recipient holds the token allocation on paper but can’t sell any of it. At the end of the cliff, either all the cliffed tokens release at once (less common) or a portion releases and the rest continues vesting linearly (more common).
The length of the cliff is a signal about project intent. A 6-month cliff is short and usually means the project wants to give insiders the option to exit early. A 12-month cliff is standard for most early-stage rounds. A 24-month cliff is long and suggests the team and investors are aligned on the long-term. Zero cliff is a red flag: it means tokens start flowing into the market immediately after launch with no grace period, which almost guarantees early dumps.
Cliffs combined with linear vesting create a specific pressure point. At the end of a 12-month cliff, whatever percentage of the total allocation was “cliffed” suddenly becomes available to the insider, and the rest continues releasing monthly or weekly. If the cliff covers 25% of the total allocation, then on cliff day 25% of the team’s tokens unlock in one block, which is often the largest single-day supply release of the entire vesting schedule. Tracking when major cliffs end is part of reading any project’s supply overhang.
The honest question for any project you’re considering is “what vesting schedule do the founders and early investors have, when do the next cliffs end, and how much unlocks on those days relative to the current circulating supply?” A project with a pending cliff that releases 10% of supply next month has a very different risk profile from a project whose cliffs are all behind it. OYM’s Supply Dynamics dimension tries to capture this, but the precise unlock schedules usually need to be checked against the original tokenomics page or on-chain vesting contracts.