Recently, many people in the background have been asking me why, despite continuous good news about Sign's cooperation in the Middle East and the full chain adaptation landing, the coin price remains stuck in the range of $0.05 to $0.07, unable to rise even when the market rebounds? My answer is very simple: the market only sees its nominal circulation of 1.2 billion coins, thinking that it is light and easy to pump, but completely overlooks that beneath the surface lie three layers of hidden selling pressure that could explode at any time. On-chain liquidity is already nearing exhaustion, and no amount of good news can support a sustained upward trend.
First, we need to overturn the market's most deeply rooted cognitive misconceptions: Sign's true circulating supply is far from as light as you think.
According to the officially published token economic model, the total supply of SIGN is 10 billion tokens, and only 12% or 1.2 billion tokens will be released into circulation at TGE, with the remaining shares for the team, investors, and advisors locked for 12 months, with the first unlocking not occurring until August 2026. However, through comprehensive tracking of on-chain addresses, I discovered that this seemingly healthy circulating structure has already been thoroughly disrupted by private token transfers.
On-chain data shows that among the current 1.2 billion circulating tokens, the top 100 non-exchange addresses collectively hold 816 million tokens, accounting for 68% of the circulating supply, with over 70% of these addresses being early private placement investor addresses from the TGE in 2025. The cost basis of these addresses is less than 0.01 US dollars, and at the current price of 0.06 US dollars, they already have over six times floating profits, which can be sold in the secondary market at any time. More critically, nearly 30% of these addresses have already completed token transfers through the OTC market, with the new holders mostly being short-term market makers and large holders. These tokens have no lock-up restrictions, and any price rebound will create selling pressure.
In comparison to the Polygon ID token in the same track, the top 100 non-exchange addresses hold only 42% of the circulating supply, with a far greater degree of token decentralization than Sign. The vast majority of retail investors only see the nominal circulating supply of 1.2 billion tokens but do not realize that over 70% of the tokens are concentrated in the hands of a few early investors. These floating profits can be sold at any time, which is the core underlying reason why the token price continues to struggle to rise.
Next, I will break down the three layers of invisible selling pressure that the market has completely overlooked, each of which can penetrate the current price support.
The first layer is the early unlocking tokens of institutional investors, which presents the most lethal short-term selling pressure. The market generally believes that all institutional shares will not be unlocked until August, but after reviewing the financing agreements for the October 2025 follow-up round, I found that four leading institutions, including YZi Labs and Sequoia Capital, have signed milestone early unlocking clauses with the project party—if the project achieves any of the three milestones: 'UAE project landing, App launch, monthly revenue exceeds 5 million US dollars,' up to 50% of their investment can be unlocked early.
Currently, the UAE project has entered the testing phase, and the App is confirmed to launch in May, with two milestones about to be achieved, corresponding to an early unlocking of over 420 million tokens. Through tracking related on-chain addresses, I found that two associated wallets of YZi Labs have transferred a total of 120 million SIGN tokens to Binance in the past two weeks, which is also the core reason why positive news has continued to emerge but the token price has not been able to break through the 0.07 US dollar mark. Most investors have not accounted for these early unlocking tokens in their selling pressure expectations.
The second layer is the OBI plan's witch token farming tokens, which present continuous selling pressure from retail investors. Of the 25 million SIGN tokens available for the first quarter OBI plan, over 78% of the claiming addresses are bulk-generated witch addresses, with nearly zero cost basis. Within seven days after claiming, over 60% of the tokens were transferred to exchanges, and any small price rebound will trigger selling. The second quarter OBI plan is about to begin, releasing another 25 million SIGN tokens, and even if only half of these flow into the market, it will bring immense pressure to the already fragile liquidity.
The third layer is the off-market staking tokens of the team and advisors, which can trigger passive selling pressure at any time. Although the team and advisor shares have a 12-month lock-up period and cannot be directly sold in the secondary market, I found through on-chain data from DeFi lending platforms that five addresses related to the team have pledged over 200 million unblocked SIGN tokens to local Middle Eastern crypto lending platforms through off-market staking to obtain liquidity. Once the token price falls below the warning line of 0.045 US dollars, these pledged tokens will be forcibly liquidated by the platform, creating a cost-irrelevant passive dump, which is a black swan risk that the market has completely failed to anticipate.
More deadly than invisible selling pressure is the on-chain liquidity that is on the verge of exhaustion.
I have compiled the market data for the SIGN/USDT trading pair on Binance, with the total amount of buy orders from the first to the tenth being less than 1.8 million USDT, while the total amount of sell orders from the first to the tenth exceeds 12 million USDT, resulting in a severe imbalance in buy and sell depth. This means that as long as there are sell orders exceeding 500,000 USDT, the token price can drop by more than 10%; conversely, to raise the token price by 10%, it requires less than 200,000 USDT in buy orders, but there is no funding willing to enter the market, as no one wants to take over from early investors holding massive floating profits.
The situation on decentralized exchanges is even worse, with the total locked amount in the entire SIGN liquidity pool being less than 2.8 million USDT. Even a small exchange of 10,000 USDT can result in slippage exceeding 3%. Retail investors are unwilling to hold long-term on-chain, and can only engage in short-term speculation on exchanges, creating a vicious cycle where 'the worse the liquidity, the lower the willingness to hold tokens; the lower the willingness to hold tokens, the worse the liquidity.'
The unlocking tide in August will be the ultimate test of this liquidity dilemma. At that time, the first batch of unlocks for the team, investors, and advisors will exceed 1.3 billion tokens, doubling the circulating supply. Even if only 10% of the tokens flow into the market, there will need to be over 7.8 million USDT in buying support, which the current buying depth simply cannot handle. The market previously hoped that the node recruitment plan would hedge against selling pressure, but ultimately the total locked amount for nodes is only 200 million tokens, which cannot even cover the smallest portion of the unlocking scale.
Of course, $SIGN is not without opportunities for a breakthrough. Its only way out is not through more PR releases and intended MOUs, but to put real money on the table to solve the liquidity problem: either unite institutions to announce a lock-up extension to stabilize short-term selling pressure; or sign long-term market-making agreements with leading market makers to improve market depth; or launch a clear repurchase and destruction plan to support the token price with real revenue. If it solely relies on narrative-driven speculation and allows liquidity to continue to dry up, it will ultimately become a neglected zombie coin. $BTC
The four core signals I am currently monitoring are completely unrelated to cooperative PR or token price fluctuations: first, whether @SignOfficial the official will release an announcement extending the lock-up for the team and institutions; second, whether the buy and sell depth on exchanges will show significant improvement; third, whether the second quarter OBI plan will introduce strict witch control mechanisms; fourth, whether the official will launch a clear repurchase and destruction plan. I will consider increasing my holdings only if two of these four signals exceed expectations; if they all fall short, I will wait until after the August unlocking tide before making a decision. I say this to myself. #BTC
