Title: Proposal to Unlock Investor Tokens
Author: JSharpe3
Submission Date: 23 November 2025
Summary
This proposal seeks to remove the remaining vesting for investor tokens, with the purpose of unlocking all remaining investor tokens in their entirety.
This would equate to unlocking roughly 1.5B REZ tokens which are due to be unlocked in a linear manner over the next 6 months until April 2026.
Overview
As part of Renzo’s initial funding, investors were sold 3.16B REZ tokens (31.6% of the total supply). A 12 month cliff + 12 month vesting period was imposed on these tokens. The 12 month cliff ended on 30 April 2025, and the investor tokens have been unlocking ever since. We are roughly half way into this 12 month vesting period, and roughly 1.5B REZ tokens remain to be unlocked.
The purpose of this vesting period was to protect the price and chart of the token by not allowing early investors to sell large amounts early on. However, looking at the REZ chart, you can see the price of REZ has been consistently going down regardless. Furthermore, now the 12 month linear vesting period for these investors has begun, there has been an even stronger downward pressure on the token price, and this will continue for the next 6 months unless something is changed.
I propose to fully unlock all remaining investor tokens immediately. Doing so would finally give the REZ token a chance to stop bleeding, and allow the buyback and burn strategy to actually have a large impact on the token price and supply through cheaper accumulation.
Motivation and Rationale
The price of REZ is down 98% since its all-time-high price in April 2024. The current price is sitting around all-time-lows, and is showing no sign of improving. Since investor tokens began unlocking on 30 April 2025, the price of REZ is down 55%.
Something needs to be done to improve the REZ tokenomics, or we are doomed to sink forever lower.
The team has recently implemented a buyback and burn strategy (proposal here), which seeks to rebuy 10% of the REZ supply within 6 months. This strategy has already begun, and is due to take place between October 2025 and April 2026. This timing aligns perfectly with the remaining months that investors have for the vesting of their investor tokens.
It makes no sense for this 6 month buyback and burn strategy to be implemented while there is still a 6 month overhang of investor tokens. The strategy aims to accumulate and burn 10% of the REZ supply, which is 1B REZ tokens; however, investors still have ~1.5B REZ to be unlocked between now and April 2026. This essentially cancels out the impact the buyback and burn strategy has and negates any positive price impact.
It would be far more effective to immediately unlock all investor tokens, allow the market to digest this unlock in one go, and then proceed to implement an ongoing buyback and burn strategy. The unlock would likely cause a short-term dip in price, but this allows for the buyback and burn strategy to accumulate tokens at a cheaper price, and have a greater market impact, and more importantly, not have this large investor unlock overhang suppressing any positive effect. We are wasting precious capital running the buyback and burn strategy alongside these unlocks.
If you want an example of the potential strength of removing long-standing token unlocks, refer to the Merit Circle DAO vote here. The token was down 99% from the 2021 peak and there was constant ongoing sell pressure from the staking program. The community voted to remove the staking program which was providing this downward pressure, and all stakers were immediately unlocked, with existing rewards still claimable. Between that proposal passing in July 2023 and March 2024, the price of the MC token went from 20c to over $4 — a 20x increase. While the wider market certainly played a large role in this price increase, it was the shift in tokenomics that allowed the MC token to heavily capitalize on future tailwinds.
Implementation
If this proposal is successful, the Renzo team will remove the vesting streams for all investor tokens, and will unlock all remaining investor tokens.
Investors will then be able to claim 100% of all unclaimed tokens immediately, without having to wait for the original vesting to be completed. This would equate to roughly 1.5B REZ tokens being immediately unlocked.
Risks and Mitigations
The main risk is a short-term dip in price. I do not disagree that unlocking 1.5B REZ tokens for investors will likely have a negative price impact in the immediate term.
However, REZ is already down 98% from all-time-highs. We are sitting at all-time-lows as we speak. We have been in a downtrend since the day of launch. We must stop the bleeding, otherwise we have no chance at breaking this 18 month downtrend. Our focus should be on ensuring the REZ tokenomics are geared towards future growth.
Investor tokens will continue to provide a constant source of downwards pressure for the next 6 months, and will overwhelm any positive impact of a buyback and burn strategy. Quite simply, if we continue as we are, we are guaranteed to remain in a downtrend for the next 6 months, and possibly beyond. Removing this token overhang is the best chance we have at stopping the bleeding, and allowing the buyback and burn strategy to actually have a positive impact.
Voting
YAY - All investor tokens should have vesting removed and be unlocked in their entirety immediately.
NAY - Investor tokens shouldn’t have their existing vesting removed, will continue to unlock in a linear manner until the vesting completes in April 2026.