• Only half of +$1 billion TIA from token unlock could hit the market. 
• Will the reduced sell-off risk boost TIA prospects? 

According to an OTC (over-the-counter) dealer, Celestia’s over $1 billion worth of TIA token unlock might not experience as intense sell pressure as previously projected. 

Taran Sabharwal, founder of crypto OTC firm Stix, projected that the sell-pressure could be half of the token unlocks (188.5 million tokens), as only half have been unstaked for sell-off on October 31st. He said,

“We’ve summarised that a total of 92.3M $TIA will be liquid post unlock, which would act as the upper bound of overall spot selling pressure.” 

He added, 

“This equates to a max selling pressure of ~$460M. What is also interesting here is that this accounts for <50% of the total cliff unlocks, which means that the sell pressure is half of what people have been expecting.” 

Better for TIA price?  

Commenting on the potential impact of the unlock on TIA price, Sabharwal said it would be a bullish signal for spot buyers as more shorts opened during the first unlock would unwind. 

“We expect a lot of these shorts to continue winding down, partially negating the spot-selling pressure. This funding reset may be a bull signal for spot buyers.” 

Other users echoed the bullish outlook and expected any potential dip to be a good re-entry for long positions. One noted, 

“With unlocks getting absorbed by the market and shorts starting to cover, it could be one of the best entries on $TIA for those bullish on the ETH modularity narrative.” 

Another user, Simon Dedic, a partner at crypto VC Moonrock Capital, acknowledged short-term volatility for TIA but noted it was an overall bullish set-up. He said,

“While we might see volatility in the short term, this could ultimately be a huge bullish setup. With Celestia positioning itself as the go-to data availability layer, $TIA might just be setting up for its own $SOL-like move.” 

But Ignas, a DeFi analyst, noted that an extended bleed-out couldn’t be ruled out. This could even be complicated by the ongoing FUD that Celestia generated only $15K since its debut (October 2023). 

Market positioning

That said, at press time, marketing positioning on Binance was skewed towards bullish bets. In fact, long positions have increased in the past three days, rising from 55% to over 60%. This showed that traders expected a potential TIA rebound.   

Read Celestia [TIA] Price Prediction 2024-2025

In the meantime, $4.5 was a key short-term target to watch, as it has stopped recent pullbacks since early September. Any crack below it might drag TIA to range-lows near $3.5.