- Polychain earned $78M by selling staking rewards, keeping its full 65M token position untouched.
- Five wallets sold 6.35M TIA from emissions, accounting for $51M—about 9.77% of each allocation.
- The emission model drew backlash, enabling insiders to profit without selling vested tokens.
Polychain, a crypto investment firm, has earned over $78 million through Celestia (TIA) staking rewards. According to blockchain analyst Pavel Paramonov, the firm achieved this without selling any of its core 65 million TIA token allocation. The sales instead came from stake emissions tied to its vested holdings.
The data shows that Polychain’s wallets distributed across over 30 addresses offloaded 6,355,167.50 TIA tokens. These were all sourced from staking rewards, which, at the time of sale, stood at $78,058,186.52 USD. Despite these sales, none of the wallets sold any tokens from their original vested balance.
Wallet Activity Suggests Strong Liquidity Strategy
Polychain received its allocation as part of Celestia’s early investor distribution, reportedly in exchange for a $20 million investment. The fact that no core tokens were sold indicates the firm retained its full position while still extracting liquidity.
According to Paramonov’s findings, Polychain’s staking operations allowed the firm to earn over four times its initial investment. This has drawn attention to token distribution models that let early investors sell staking rewards while keeping their main allocations locked.
The largest sales originated from five wallets:
- Celestia1c6q…0jjjal: 830,327.675 TIA, worth $10,246,702.40
- Celestia1chn…6rstz3: 831,931.2544 TIA, worth $10,273,055.68
- Celestia1nk3…ad9uu: 830,381.028 TIA, worth $10,247,594.48
- Celestia1v9n…7qrumv: 831,965.4152 TIA, worth $10,275,731.77
- celestia1wzf…qr3q55: 830,339.0025 TIA, worth $10,249,006.62
Each of these wallets received a vesting allocation of 8,500,872.33 TIA, yet only staking rewards were sold, approximately 9.77% of the total allocation per wallet. Together, these five addresses contributed over $51 million of the total realized gains.
Besides staking reward wallets, Paramonov identified addresses labeled as “NO VESTING genesis wallets.” These wallets also sold TIA, with some showing fixed sale amounts. Five wallets each sold exactly 97,407.32 TIA, valued at about $4.2 million in total.
Five other wallets sold 11,834.67 TIA each, amounting to over $413,000 combined. In total, these wallets sold 546,208.88 TIA, worth approximately $4.76 million. These wallets shared overlapping transaction patterns with Polychain’s reward-linked addresses, suggesting possible operational control or coordination.
Related: Bit Digital Exits Bitcoin Mining to Focus on ETH Staking
Industry Reactions Raise Questions About Token Emissions
The visibility of Polychain’s earnings has sparked broader debate among blockchain commentators and industry observers. One such example is Omid Malekan, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, who argued that if venture capital firms are earning rewards on locked tokens and immediately liquidating them, they prioritize return maximization over long-term project commitment.
Any chain that allows insiders to earn emissions on locked tokens is optimizing insider/VC profits over product success.
He added, “I am all for VCs maximizing LP profits, but if you participate in such an arrangement, save me the BS about believing in the project. You don’t.” His post drew attention to the mechanics that allow early backers to profit from staking rewards without selling their principal investments.
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