Where do token unlock dates come from, and how reliable are they?

Short answer: From project documents and on-chain contracts, collected by calendars like CoinMarketCap and DefiLlama. Mostly right, sometimes off by days.

Unlock dates start in a project's tokenomics document or smart contract. Aggregators such as CoinMarketCap, DefiLlama, Tokenomist and CryptoRank read those sources and publish calendars. We use CoinMarketCap's unlock calendar and DefiLlama's emissions data, and refresh every hour.

How reliable is that? Good enough for the day, not always for the hour. Projects delay unlocks, change schedules, or publish a date without a time. Calendars sometimes copy each other's errors. Occasionally the numbers don't add up at all: an unlock 'worth' more than the coin's whole market cap. We flag those rows 'data check' and keep them out of our counts.

Rule of thumb: use the calendar to know what's coming, and confirm with the project's own channels before acting on a specific date. Every token page has a 'what this page can't tell you' section for the same reason.

Updated 2026-10-27 with the current archive. Not financial advice.

Where do token unlock dates come from, and how reliable are they?

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