Locking treasury and ecosystem funds.

Q: Should a project lock its treasury?

Most of it, yes — but not all. Split the treasury by when you need each part: a small liquid operating tranche, a medium tranche on a vesting schedule, and a locked long-term reserve. Locking everything creates an operational problem; locking nothing leaves the largest unlocked balance in the project.

Published 2026-07-27 · HoodLock Team

Teams lock liquidity, vest the team allocation, and then leave 30% of supply sitting in a wallet labelled "treasury". It's usually the largest unlocked balance in the project, and the one people ask about second.

The tension

Treasury funds are different from team allocations in one important way: you actually need to spend them. Grants, market making, partnerships, listings — all of it requires tokens you can move. A single long lock on the whole treasury solves the credibility problem and creates an operational one.

The answer isn't to lock everything or nothing. It's to split the treasury by how soon you need each part.

A structure that works

Tranche	Share	Treatment
Operating — next 6 months	~15%	Liquid, in a multisig
Medium term — 6–24 months	~35%	Vesting schedule releasing monthly
Long term / reserve	~50%	Locked, extended as it approaches

The operating tranche is small enough that its being liquid isn't alarming. The medium tranche releases on a schedule people can plan around instead of arriving unpredictably. The reserve is locked, which turns most of the treasury from a question into a fact.

Why vesting suits a treasury better than a lock

A lock releases everything at once. For a treasury that means one date where a large balance becomes spendable — a supply event holders will trade against whether or not you intend to sell. A vesting schedule releasing monthly produces a predictable, absorbable flow, and it matches how a treasury is actually spent.

It also removes a conversation. "When does the treasury unlock?" has no good answer if the answer is one date and a big number. If the answer is a schedule anyone can read, the question stops being asked.

Ecosystem and grant funds

Funds earmarked for grants have the same shape as a treasury but a stronger reason to be visible: the whole point is that they go to other people. A vesting schedule with the grant programme's own address as beneficiary makes the commitment legible without requiring you to know in advance who the recipients are.

Be careful with the beneficiary address here. On HoodLock a schedule's beneficiary can transfer the position to another address, so the address you choose should be one the project controls durably — a multisig rather than an individual.

The part to get right

Schedules are irrevocable. If you vest treasury funds over three years and then need them in year one, there is no mechanism to accelerate, not for us, not for you. Size the liquid tranche honestly rather than optimistically, because the cost of getting it wrong is a public request to work around your own commitment, which undoes more trust than the lock created.

Publishing it

A treasury policy in a docs page is a claim; the same policy expressed as locks and vesting schedules with proof links is checkable. Publish the addresses for each tranche alongside the proof pages so the sum is verifiable. That's what turns "we hold 30% in treasury" from a worry into a structure. See allocation benchmarks for how the treasury share fits the rest.

Common questions

Should a project lock its treasury?

Most of it, yes, but not all. Split the treasury by when you need each part: a small liquid operating tranche, a medium tranche on a vesting schedule, and a locked long-term reserve. Locking everything creates an operational problem; locking nothing leaves the largest unlocked balance in the project.

Is vesting better than a lock for treasury funds?

For the portion you'll spend gradually, yes. A lock releases everything on one date, creating a supply event people trade against. A vesting schedule releasing monthly produces a predictable flow that matches how a treasury is actually spent.

What address should hold a treasury vesting schedule?

A multisig the project controls durably, not an individual wallet. The beneficiary can transfer the position to another address, so the choice should reflect who should control those funds for the schedule's whole life.

What if we need locked treasury funds early?

You cannot get them. Schedules and locks on HoodLock are irrevocable and extend-only respectively, with no acceleration mechanism. Size the liquid tranche realistically rather than optimistically.

Keep reading

Structure the treasury on-chain

Locks for the reserve, vesting for the flow, each with its own proof page.

Create a schedule →