Emission changes how many tokens exist. An unlock changes the availability of tokens that may already exist. Market capitalization and fully diluted valuation put a price on different supply measures. Keeping these concepts separate prevents a common mistake: subtracting the dollar value of future unlocks from current protocol revenue and calling the remainder a holder return.
Build a supply account in token units
For one canonical asset and one complete observation period, net issuance can be expressed as minted units minus burned units. This requires coverage of all relevant issuance and destruction, including special mechanisms such as rebasing. A measured net reduction in units is a supply observation; it is not money distributed to holders.
A token bridged to another network needs identity-aware accounting. Locking an original token and minting its wrapped representation does not create another unit of the underlying asset's global economic supply. Summing the original and the wrapper as independent circulating tokens would count the same claim twice. Native assets with several deployments require an explicit consolidation rule.
An unlock is a change in availability
Illustrative example: three million tokens were minted earlier and held under vesting. Their unlock makes them transferable according to the schedule. It does not mint three million new tokens and does not prove that any recipient sold. A recipient may retain, stake, transfer or sell them; these are later observable decisions.
If the current reference price is $5, the unlock has a scenario value of $15 million at that price. That is neither guaranteed sale proceeds nor a cash obligation of the protocol. The eventual price and recipient behavior remain unknown. Record the schedule version, cliff or linear release, beneficiary category and applicable token contract.
The supply block distinguishes observed changes from scheduled availability. Unknown coverage stays unknown. A blank issuance field cannot be treated as evidence of no inflation, and a future unlock should not appear as an already completed transfer.
Market cap and FDV answer different questions
Market capitalization conventionally multiplies price by an estimate of circulating supply. FDV multiplies price by a specified fully diluted supply basis, often maximum or total supply. The exact basis must be stated, especially where supply is not capped. Neither number is the money invested in the asset or the amount for which all tokens could be sold.
Another illustrative example: with a price of $2, 100 million circulating tokens and a fully diluted basis of one billion tokens, market cap is $200 million and FDV is $2 billion. The difference identifies a supply assumption. It does not by itself determine whether the token is cheap, expensive or destined to fall.
Choose a denominator that matches the question
Cash spent on buybacks divided by a compatible market cap is a buyback-to-capitalization ratio. It is not the personal yield of someone holding a token. Payments available only to a locked or staked position need a denominator reflecting that position's eligibility and valuation, not the capitalization of every circulating token.
A snapshot also needs a price timestamp. A historical 30-day purchase total combined with today's market cap is a mixed-date calculation unless explicitly labelled that way. Currency conversion dates matter too: converting an entire period at a single later price can tell a different story from valuing each execution at its observed price.
Read supply beside cash, not inside it
Inspect issuance, burns, treasury holdings, locks and unlock schedules alongside revenue and spending. Do not calculate “buybacks plus burns minus emissions minus unlocks”: that combines dollars with units and can count one purchase twice. Supply pressure is a scenario to investigate, not an accounting expense inferred from a calendar.
The Aerodrome record provides a place to inspect the asset and mechanism scope; the methodology defines units, coverage and compatible denominators across the screener.