Team vesting is a contract that holds a project team's token allocation and releases it in portions on dates fixed in advance. Nothing is claimable before the cliff date, and after it the tokens arrive gradually rather than all at once. On Robinhood Chain the schedule is public, so anyone can check the math.
What is team vesting? The four numbers that define it
Every vesting schedule, however it is described, reduces to four inputs. Get these and you can compute the whole thing yourself.
The total. How many tokens are under the schedule, and what share of supply that is. A schedule covering a small slice of a large allocation constrains very little.
The cliff. The date before which nothing is claimable. Unlock cliff is the single most-read number in a schedule, because it is the one hard commitment: on the day before, zero tokens can move.
The duration. How long the schedule runs in total, measured from the start date.
The release frequency. Whether tokens become claimable monthly, weekly, per block, or in a few large tranches. Frequency decides whether releases are non-events or dates people trade around.
Everything else — "24-month vesting, 6-month cliff" — is shorthand for these four.
The cliff arithmetic, worked through
The figures below are a hypothetical example for arithmetic only. They are not observed chain data and no real allocation is being described.
Say a team allocation of 1,000,000 tokens, a 6-month cliff, 24 months of total vesting from the start date, and monthly releases. The schedule is cliff-inclusive, meaning the clock starts on day one and the cliff simply delays access to what has already accrued.
The monthly rate is the total divided by the duration: 1,000,000 ÷ 24 = 41,667 tokens per month, rounded. Nothing is claimable for the first five months. On the cliff date, six months of accrual unlock together: 6 × 41,667 = 250,000 tokens, or 25% of the allocation. From then on, 41,667 tokens become claimable each month until the schedule ends.
| Month | Claimable that month | Cumulative claimable | Share of allocation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| 6 (cliff) | 250,000 | 250,000 | 25% |
| 7 | 41,667 | 291,667 | ~29% |
| 12 | 41,667 | 500,000 | 50% |
| 18 | 41,667 | 750,000 | 75% |
| 24 | 41,667 | 1,000,000 | 100% |
Two things fall out of this table that teams rarely anticipate. The cliff date is the largest single release in the schedule — a quarter of the allocation in one day. And half the tokens arrive by month 12, much earlier than "24-month vesting" sounds to someone reading the announcement.
The convention that changes everything
The same words describe two different schedules, and the difference is months of supply.
Cliff-inclusive. The vesting clock starts at day one and the duration includes the cliff. The example above: 6-month cliff inside 24 months total, so the last tokens release at month 24.
Cliff-additive. The cliff comes first, then the stated duration starts. A 6-month cliff plus 24 months of vesting means the last tokens release at month 30, and the cliff-date release is one month's worth rather than six.
Under the first convention, the hypothetical above releases 250,000 tokens on the cliff date. Under the second, the same allocation releases about 41,667 — a gap of roughly 21% of the allocation on a single day. Both get described as "6-month cliff, 24-month vesting."
So do not accept the phrase. Ask for the start date, cliff date, end date and release interval, or read all four off the contract.
How to check a schedule someone shows you
Vesting is a contract, so a slide is not evidence. Four checks, in order.
Confirm the contract exists and is funded.
An announced schedule with no funded contract behind it constrains nothing at all.
Read the dates from the contract, not from the deck.
Start, cliff, end and interval are on-chain values.
Check what share of supply the schedule actually covers.
A vested allocation next to a much larger unvested wallet tells you little — holder concentration is where you see the rest.
Find the next release date and its size.
Upcoming releases surface on this week's unlocks as they approach. As of —pending, the next scheduled release on Robinhood Chain is —pending, —pending away, per Locksley's contract reads.
A funded schedule renders on the token page on its own: total under vesting, beneficiary, cliff date, and the next release with a countdown. Nobody has to submit it and nobody can pay to change how it displays.
Vesting is not a liquidity lock
The two get conflated constantly, and they cover different failures. Vesting constrains a supply allocation held by named beneficiaries. A liquidity lock holds the pool position so it cannot be withdrawn before a release timestamp — see why buyers check locks before charts for why that one gets checked first.
Vesting's boundary is just as narrow. It constrains when tokens become claimable, and nothing else. It says nothing about what a beneficiary does the moment they are claimable, nothing about tokens held outside the schedule, and nothing about price on any date.
Setting one up
Vesting schedules are created through Team Finance, which is our sister product — the disclosure sits next to the price. As of August 2026, vesting costs $100 per use, with gas paid separately in ETH. Team Finance is a multi-chain Web3 token-management suite that projects and individuals use to lock liquidity, vest tokens, mint and manage supply across chains, and you can create a vesting schedule directly.
Before you enter dates, read vesting your team's tokens for the schedule patterns and what each signals, and what locking and vesting prove for how vesting compares in cost and effect to the other commitments available to you.
Frequently asked questions
What happens on the cliff date exactly?
Everything accrued up to that date becomes claimable in one moment, and the beneficiary can claim it whenever they choose afterwards. Under a cliff-inclusive schedule that can be a large share of the allocation arriving at once. The tokens are not automatically sent or sold — claimable means the beneficiary now has the ability to withdraw them.
Is team vesting the same as a token lock?
No. A token lock holds an allocation until a single release date, then makes all of it available at once. Vesting spreads the release across many dates, usually after a cliff. Vesting is more informative to a reader because it shows the full release curve, not just one date; a lock is simpler and covers a single commitment.
How do I calculate what is claimable today?
Take the total under vesting, divide by the number of release periods in the duration to get the per-period amount, then multiply by the number of periods elapsed since the start — counting zero until the cliff date passes, at which point all accrued periods release together. Subtract anything already claimed to get the current claimable balance.
“No lock found” means we found none, not that none exists: we do not index other lockers yet, and it is never a claim about the project.
How a rug actually happens, step by step
Read nextVesting your team's tokens
Team token vesting releases your allocation on a public schedule instead of all at once. Schedule patterns, what each signals to buyers, costs and what shows.
Read nextWhat locking, vesting and staking prove — and what each costs
What locking and vesting prove on Robinhood Chain, rung by rung: five on-chain commitments, the exact limit of each one, and dated August 2026 prices.
Read nextWhy buyers check locks before charts
Why lock liquidity? Buyers read the lock before the chart, because lock state is contract data and a day-one chart is not. What it proves and cannot do.
See it liveWhat happens when a liquidity lock expires
What happens when a liquidity lock expires on Robinhood Chain: nothing automatic — the pool position simply becomes withdrawable by whoever owns it.
Do itToken vesting on Robinhood Chain
Token vesting on Robinhood Chain releases team and investor supply on a schedule anyone can read on-chain. $100 per schedule as of August 2026, plus gas.
