Lesson 02 · Unit 1 · General
Supply and scarcity
Supply is a number someone chose. Somebody typed "1,000,000,000" into a form when they created the token. It is not scarce because it is round, and it is not credible because it is large.
The number starts to mean something only next to two other facts: whether it can grow, and who is holding it. The first is the mint authority — a switch on the token that, while it is still live, lets its owner create more supply at any moment and dilute everyone who bought. The second is distribution: the same billion tokens spread across thirty thousand wallets, or parked in three, are two completely different assets.
A supply that looks fine until you split it
Team wallet42%
Liquidity pool18%
Everyone else40%
The trap
A fixed supply held by three wallets is more dangerous than an inflating supply held by thirty thousand. Scarcity you cannot buy and cannot sell is not scarcity — it is somebody else's inventory.
Read the split, not the total. Three questions do it: how much sits in the liquidity pool — that part is the market, not an owner; how much sits in the largest non-pool wallet; and how much is locked or vesting, on a schedule with a date you can look up. A billion tokens with 40% in the pool and the rest spread across thousands of wallets is a completely different asset from a billion where one address holds 42%.
And a supply number can be worked on in three ordinary ways. It can be created — while the mint authority is live, the total is a draft. It can be hidden — the circulating figure a site quotes often excludes team and vesting wallets that are perfectly able to sell. And it can be disguised — one holder splits across forty fresh wallets, and any chart that counts wallets reports a crowd.
Where this goes next
Two of those levers get a lesson of their own — the switch that creates new supply, and the wallets that hold what exists today.