Reading tokenomics
FDV, supply, unlock ladders, TWAPs — the nutrition-label guide.
Every raise page carries a tokenomics module, and it is the nutrition label of the deal: what you are buying, how much of the thing it represents, and who holds the rest. This page walks the label line by line using the numbers Backable actually uses.
The price you pay
Every raise sells a fixed 10,000,000 tokens to backers. The price per token is simply the goal divided by that number, so a $150,000 goal prices tokens at $0.015. Everyone in the raise pays that price — there is no early-bird discount and no insider round underneath you.
FDV: what the whole project is being valued at
is the token price multiplied by every token that will ever exist, and it is the number to argue with. If backers buy 10M tokens at $0.015 but total supply is 25M, the project is being valued at $375,000, not the $150,000 being raised.
Where the supply goes
Supply is . Creating more requires a proposal that a market has to approve, so nobody can quietly print tokens and dilute you. A typical raise splits like this:
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Backers (the ICO allocation) | 10,000,000 |
| Futarchy AMM liquidity, paired with 20% of the raise | 2,000,000 |
| Additional pool liquidity at ICO price | 900,000 |
| Founder performance package | set by the founder |
The founder's package is the variable to watch. A package of 12.9M tokens against 10M for backers means the founder holds more of the project than everyone who funded it combined — which can be entirely reasonable for a team that will work on this for years, but you should notice it rather than discover it later.
Liquidity: why part of your money buys a market
Twenty percent of the raise does not go to the treasury. It is paired with tokens into a so the token can be bought and sold from day one. Without it you would own something with no price and no exit. The cost of that is real: it reduces the working capital the team receives, which is why runway should always be computed against 80% of the goal.
The unlock ladder
The founder's tokens do not unlock on a calendar. They unlock in five equal tranches at 2×, 4×, 8×, 16× and 32× the price backers paid, after an initial lock period. If the token never doubles, the founder never unlocks a single tranche.
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Tranche 1 unlocks at | 2× your entry price |
| Tranche 2 | 4× |
| Tranche 3 | 8× |
| Tranche 4 | 16× |
| Tranche 5 | 32× |
This is the single most important alignment device on the platform. In a conventional token launch the team unlocks on a schedule regardless of outcome, which means the team gets paid whether or not you did. invert that: backers are up before the founder is liquid.
TWAP: why a price spike doesn't count
An unlock triggered by a moment's price would be trivially gameable — buy the token hard for ten seconds, trip the tranche, sell into the backers. So unlocks are measured against a over a long window, typically three months. Holding a manipulated price for three months costs more than the tokens are worth, which is the point.
A two-minute read of any tokenomics module
Check FDV against the stage of the company. Check the backer share of supply — under 20% and you are buying a sliver. Check the founder package against the backer allocation. Check that the first unlock is at 2× or higher. If all four look reasonable, the deal structure is not the reason to pass; the business is.