Moonriver to unlock 1.1M KSM in May as leasing period comes to an end

The Moonriver team has announced the Big Unlock event, where it will unlock 1.1 million Kusama (KSM) that was locked in the first batch of parachain crowd loans. The funds will be unlocked “around May 15,” when the lease period is expected to end.

❓ So what is “The Big Unlock”?

Around May 15th, ***1.1 MILLION $KSM*** from the first batch of parachain crowdloans will be unlocked. That means ~10% of the supply will be back in circulation. pic.twitter.com/ZmS3yDfo3L

— Moonriver Network (@MoonriverNW) April 27, 2022

Moonriver said this event is a big deal because it will reintroduce over 10% of KSM’s supply into the market.

In a follow-up tweet, Moonriver said:

Why is it such a big deal? Because now parachains are live and @kusamanetwork DeFi is in full swing! ? Now Kusama crowdloan OGs just need to figure out what they want to do with their ?. #TheBigUnlock

KSM holders are spoilt for choice

Unlike in the past year, when KSM holders locked their tokens, KSM now has more use cases. Moonriver has grown to become the largest ecosystem on Kusama in terms of total value locked (TVL) and usage. The network rolls out dApps and DeFi options regularly. KSM holders can use their tokens in the dApps and earn rewards.

The crowdloan tokens are coming as parachains continue flourishing. Thus far, Moonriver has onboarded 29 parachains, and most of them support KSM through cross-consensus messaging (XCM). Holders only need to deposit their KSM from the Kusama Relay Chain to Moonriver to get xcKSM.

xcKSM allows the use of KSM as an ERC-20 token across the Moonriver ecosystem while maintaining cross-chain capabilities. Some of the dApps that support xcKSM on Moonriver include DEXes Solarbeam and Zenlink, lending and borrowing protocol Moonwell, and liquid staking solution Lido. 

KSM and Moonriver (MOVR) prices remain stagnant

Despite this announcement, the prices of KSM and MOVR have not recorded any gains and are currently trading sideways, with little to no movement. At the time of writing, MOVR is trading at $47.24 after losing 0.89% over the past 24 hours. On the other hand, KSM is down 0.13% in the day to change hands at $159.91.