Why Could Monad's November 2026 Token Unlock Be Its Biggest Test Yet?

Monad's biggest test since its November 2025 mainnet launch arrives on November 24, 2026, when 16.8 billion MON tokens unlock in a single event. That is about 32.8% of the tokens currently in circulation, and it hands early investors, the Monad team, and Category Labs Treasury the ability to sell for the first time. Can real demand for MON absorb that much new supply without sending the price sharply lower? What Is Actually Unlocking On November 24 Monad's total supply is fixed at 100 billion MON. At launch, the project released about 49.5 billion tokens (45.7% of supply) through the public sale, airdrop, and ecosystem allocations. The remaining 50.5 billion tokens went to the team, investors, and treasury, all locked under a one-year cliff. That cliff ends on November 24, 2026, exactly one year after mainnet went live. On that date, roughly 16.8 billion MON becomes unlocked and transferable. The breakdown includes: 10.7 billion MON for the Monad team 4.925 billion MON for investors 1 billion MON for the Category Labs Treasury The remainder tied to validator reward allocations As of mid-September 2026, only about 11.8 billion MON (roughly 11.8% of total supply) was actually circulating and tradeable, according to Tokenomist.ai. The November unlock alone is larger than the entire current circulating supply, which is why traders are treating it as the defining event of MON's first year. Why Cliff Vesting Makes This Riskier Monad uses cliff vesting rather than linear vesting for its team and ecosystem allocations. Linear vesting drips tokens into the market gradually, giving prices time to adjust. Cliff vesting does the opposite: nothing unlocks for a set period, then a large batch releases all at once. That structure concentrates the supply shock into a single day instead of spreading it across months. After November 24, Monad's vesting schedule shifts toward monthly unlocks of roughly 1.16 billion MON, and the schedule continues in smaller installments through 2050. But the cliff itself is the sharpest single-day supply event MON has faced since its token generation event. What The Unlock Is Worth In Dollar Terms MON has traded between $0.023 and $0.030 through late August and September 2026, and was priced at approximately $0.027 as of mid-September. At that level, the 16.8 billion token unlock carries a market value of roughly $410 million to $450 million. Earlier in 2026, when MON traded closer to $0.037, the same unlock was valued closer to $600 million by analysts at the time. The dollar value of the event moves with the token price, but the token count and percentage of supply stay fixed, which is why traders track the unlock in MON terms first and dollar terms second. Can Network Fundamentals Absorb The Supply? Unlocks do not automatically crash a token's price.