Team and investor unlocks are happening soon (2025-07-18, 2200 UTC). I wanted to clear up some of the questions and concerns that are coming from the community.
Firstly, I want to make very clear that there has been no pre-sale of locked CLOUD. Neither Foundation nor team have ever sold a single locked CLOUD OTC apart from the two funding rounds in 2021 and 2023. Selling locked tokens is one of the worst practices in the space, because it means that team members can cash out long before they should, with devastating consequences for the project. It also encourages shady practices like the one I highlighted in my Accelerate talk: pump the price up high, sell your locked allocation to funds, then dumping after you offload your bag.
(link to talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0rvMKIayvc)
That said: the core team and early contributors will be selling some CLOUD when they unlock. Some of us want to, and some of us have to (tax reasons). While I'm sure this may be unpopular to some, I think this is very important for the long-term health of the company. A big part of how we keep people motivated and excited to work for Sanctum in the long-term is for them to know that their tokens are actually liquid and can be sold. And I think after more than four years building Sanctum, they more than deserve it.
The initial sale won't make us rich, but it will give core team members a good measure of financial stability and psychological safety (some are getting married very soon and that will help them with the purchase of their first apartment), and let us keep playing long-term games with long-term people for years and decades to come.
To minimise market volatility, we will most likely not be selling significant quantities on the market. Several liquid funds who are interested in purchasing CLOUD OTC have approached us, and we will be engaging with some of them.
All core team members will retain north of 80% of their total allocation, so there is plenty of upside left to incentivise core team members to continue working hard for the years to come. While I can't speak for the whole team, I do not see myself going anywhere anytime soon. While it has certainly been difficult, it has also been very fulfilling as Sanctum pushes me to grow every single day as a founder; to execute faster and better.
What's next for Sanctum? Where are we going? What are our plans for CLOUD? I can't reveal too much yet, but there is much to look forward to. We continue to take liquid staking on Solana to new heights (TVL in SOL terms has doubled in the past year), but we have also been quietly building a completely new product.
With our improved fiscal position (Sanctum hit profitability earlier this year), our expansion into a brand new vertical, and our renewed focus on CLOUD, I think Sanctum has a great chance of growing into something truly valuable.