Filecoin's expiring insider vesting cuts yearly new FIL from about 89 million to 21 million

Four hundred million FIL released evenly over six years, through October 15 ^[1], comes to about 66.7 million a year ^[13], the 66.7 to 68 million FIL that Crypto Briefing says leaves the schedule ^[2]. Against estimated gross issuance of 88 to 89 million FIL ^[5], that was most of the network's new supply. Crypto Briefing puts what remains at about 2% of circulating supply a year ^[7]. If 21 to 22 million FIL is 2%, the circulating base is roughly 1.05 to 1.1 billion FIL ^[14], and the issuance being retired ran near 8% of it ^[15].

The cut is to issuance, or rather to issuance paid to two holders, and unlocked tokens only weigh on a price when someone sells them. The pre-cut gain ^[11] assumes the vesting stream was being sold. Crypto Briefing does not say how much of the 400 million FIL Protocol Labs and the Foundation actually sold ^[4]. If they held most of it, less selling disappears than the 75% supply cut implies ^[3]. Part of the rally would then be paying for tokens that were never going to market.

Two other things could move the supply figure, in opposite directions. The "baseline" part of block rewards depends on total network storage hitting growth targets, so slower storage growth mints fewer FIL ^[6]. Crypto Briefing's own 21-to-22 million range already shifts with mining pace ^[5]. On the other side, burned fees leave supply for good, while collateral is locked only for the length of a storage commitment ^[8]. A decline in net growth above 100% means burns and locks remove more FIL than block rewards create; at the simulated range's 86% end, FIL is still a net issuer, only a smaller one ^[20].

Demand starts from a small base. The rise in Onchain Cloud payments from January to August is about 89-fold in seven months ^[16]. Set the August figure of $59,327 against 21 million FIL of yearly block rewards and the two match in dollars only if FIL trades below about three-tenths of a cent ^[17].

We think the supply cut is the most certain fact in this story, and that the pre-cut rally has already priced a good part of it ^[11]. The value case needs paid storage to grow from tens of thousands of dollars a year toward the dollar value of 21 million FIL ^[17]. The counter-case sits at the top of the simulated range ^[20]. If burns and collateral remove more FIL than block rewards mint by the end of 2027, holders get a shrinking supply while paid demand is still small. A second seven months at the first seven months' pace would put Onchain Cloud payments near $5.3 million a year ^[18], equal to a year of block rewards at a FIL price of about 25 cents ^[19]. Demand growing at that rate would prove our view on value wrong.