The TGE is the moment a token first becomes tradable. It marks the formal start of vesting schedules, the day-zero circulating float, and the price-discovery period. In practice the term is used loosely — sometimes meaning the smart-contract deployment, sometimes the first liquidity pool, sometimes the public listing — but most founders use it to mean the moment retail can buy.
The size of your TGE float (the % of total supply unlocked at TGE) is one of the most-scrutinised numbers in a launch. Too low and the price moves on thin volume; too high and there's no scarcity. 15–30% is the typical healthy range across the 300+ verified launches in our corpus.
Common questions
What is a healthy TGE float?
Across the 300+ launch corpus, 15–30% TGE float is the modal range. Below 5% historically creates "stealth float" dynamics where small trades move the price aggressively. Above 50% leaves no scarcity to support price discovery after the airdrop selling subsides.
Is TGE the same as the token contract deployment?
Not always. Many projects deploy the contract weeks before the TGE, then mint and distribute tokens on TGE day. The TGE is the moment the token becomes economically real — tradable, transferable, indexed by exchanges.
TGE in real launches
Hand-verified examples from the Token Economics corpus.
UNI · Sept 2020
UNISWAP
A 60% community split (treasury + airdrop + grants) became the de-facto standard for credibly decentralised protocols.
Open the tokenomics→ARB · Mar 2023
ARBITRUM
A large DAO treasury (42.78%) and an 11.6% airdrop established the L2 governance norm — but the 1-year cliff before insider unlocks meant the price was already known.
Open the tokenomics→JTO · Dec 2023
JITO
Shorter 2-year vest (vs the EVM standard of 3) reflects Solana's faster product cycles. Pairing with Jupiter for launch-day liquidity is now the Solana playbook.
Open the tokenomics→Model it yourself
Open the studio and edit TGE live.
Drag the vesting handles, change the TGE %, watch the sell-pressure chart and risk score update in real time. Free, no signup.
Open the studio→Related terms