A liquidity lock stops the pool from being withdrawn. A token lock stops the team’s own tokens from being sold. What each protects, and how to check both.
Short answer: they lock different things. A liquidity lock puts the LP tokens of a token’s trading pool into a locker, so nobody can withdraw the ETH, BNB or USDC that buyers sell into. A token lock puts part of the token supply itself — usually the share of the team, advisors or early investors — into a locker or vesting contract, so it can’t be sold before a set date. A token can have both, one or neither, and one tells you nothing about the other. Paste the token address to see what share of its pool is locked and until when, and whether any of its largest holders are locked:
| Liquidity lock | Token lock | |
|---|---|---|
| What is locked | LP tokens, the receipts for the pool | The token itself, a share of its supply |
| Whose it usually is | Whoever created the pool, usually the deployer | The team, advisors, early investors |
| What it prevents | Pulling the pool out, so nothing is left to sell into | Selling a large block into the pool and sinking the price |
| When it ends | The pool can be withdrawn that day | The tokens can be sold, all at once or in parts |
| Where to read it | Holders of the pool’s LP token, the locker’s page | Holders of the token, the locker’s page, the vesting schedule |
The pool is where every buyer and seller trades. A liquidity lock keeps the pool itself in place. It does nothing about who holds the token.
Suppose a team keeps 20% of the supply in an ordinary wallet and locks the pool. They can’t withdraw the pool, but they can sell their 20% into it. Every sale takes ETH out of the pool — the same ETH a withdrawal would have taken, only in several steps — and the price falls with each one. The lock did its job, the pool is still there, and holders lose anyway.
It works the other way too. Team tokens locked for a year, pool not locked: the team can’t sell, but whoever holds the LP tokens can take the pool out in one transaction.
That is why “liquidity locked” is only half the answer for a new token. The other half is who holds the supply, and whether that part is locked.
On 16 March 2024, 1.11 billion ARB belonging to Arbitrum’s team, advisors and investors came out of a one-year lock on a single day. That was about 87% of all the ARB already in circulation, and further releases followed every month. No pool was touched, and no liquidity lock would have shown anything: the whole event was about supply, and the date had been public since the token launched a year earlier.
Large projects publish dates like this, and unlock calendars such as Tokenomist collect them. Small tokens rarely have a schedule, and there the token’s holders list is the only place to look.
Both locks are about tokens that already exist. Neither stops the owner from minting new tokens and selling those (can the owner mint new tokens), from blocking sales (honeypot tokens), or from raising the sell tax (buy and sell tax). Those live in the contract’s code, and our check reads them on the same page as the lock.
Does “liquidity locked” mean the team’s tokens are locked? No. It reads only the pool’s LP tokens. The team’s tokens are in the token’s own holders list, locked or not.
What does “token locked liquidity” mean? The same as “liquidity locked”: the LP tokens of the token’s pool sit in a locker. It says nothing about the token’s supply.
Is a token lock the same as vesting? Nearly. A simple lock releases everything on one date; vesting releases it in parts, often monthly after a first date called the cliff. Both keep supply off the market until then.
Which lock matters more for a new token? They answer different questions. The liquidity lock says whether the pool can be taken in one transaction; the token lock says whether a large holder can sell into it. For a token a few days old, check both before you buy.
Can a team lock tokens and still sell? Not the locked ones before the date. But a lock often covers only part of the team’s tokens, and the rest can sit in other wallets. Read how much is locked, not just that a lock exists.
What happens when team tokens unlock? They become ordinary tokens in the team’s wallets and can be sold the same day. That is why traders watch large unlock dates, whether or not anyone actually sells.