Celestia’s $1B TIA unlock: Market positioned for less impact than feared

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.”

Source: STIX

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

Source: Coinglass

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.