Most tokens launch with a large share of supply locked — team, investors, treasury — released on a published schedule. An unlock increases the supply that can be sold, on a date everyone can read in advance.
Why it is not automatically bearish
Locked tokens becoming unlocked is not the same as unlocked tokens being sold. The holders may sell, hold, or have hedged already through perpetuals — and if they hedged, the price impact happened when the hedge was placed rather than on the unlock date.
And because the date is public, anyone who wanted to position for it could. That is the same reasoning as the halving: a fully anticipated supply change cannot surprise the market at the moment it occurs.
Where it does matter, and it is a liquidity argument
Compare the unlock size against the token’s actual depth rather than against its market capitalisation. Market cap is a price times a supply and says nothing about what can be absorbed; pool depth says exactly that.
An unlock that is small against market cap and large against depth is the dangerous combination, and it is common — because thin tokens have thin pools and the headline valuation hides it.
The second-order effect worth watching
Providers know the schedule too. Liquidity can be withdrawn ahead of an unlock by providers unwilling to be the exit — so depth thins before the event rather than because of it.
That shows up in depth direction in the days beforehand, and it is the more tradeable observation than the unlock itself.
The framing
An unlock is a change in the supply that could arrive, exactly as holder concentration is a statement about how much could arrive at once. Both are risk measures. Neither is a direction.