LEO

UNUS SED LEO (iFinex / Bitfinex) · Exchange token (Bitfinex), revenue-pledged buyback

14 /100

T5Impaired · #77 of 77

No engine yetTwo-way ↗low likelihoodReviewed Oct 23, 2026

DemandSoundnessDurability

6 of 454 of 404 of 15

Key facts

SupplyFloat 93% of issued supply

Circulating 919.9M, 93%
Locked or unvested 65.4M, 7%
No cap: supply can keep growing, see Supply discipline

FDV / market cap

1.1x

$8.9B / $8.3B

Market cap

$8.3B

Price $9.01, 7d −0.3%

Market data: CoinGecko, Oct 24, 2026. Scores reviewed Oct 23, 2026.

Assessment

LEO is a promise by a private company, not a protocol claim. iFinex sold all 1B tokens privately in 2019 to cover the Crypto Capital hole, keeps ~99.7% of supply in its own custody, and holds every on-chain lever: unlimited ERC-20 mint, freeze and seizure through the controller, and an EOS issuer that can re-issue retired tokens. The buyback is real and steady but small (~$26M a year on an ~$8.3B market cap) and rests on revenue nobody audits, and the 'burned' tokens remain under Bitfinex's control. The one large catalyst, 80% of net proceeds from ~94.6K recovered BTC, depends on an ancillary forfeiture case that is contested by other claimants and has no ruling. Spot liquidity is ~$0.24M a day, so the stable price says little about what holders could realize.

How value reaches holders

iFinex pledged in 2019 to buy LEO each month worth at least 27% of the previous month's consolidated gross revenue (LEO received as fees may count), plus 95% of net Crypto Capital recoveries and 80% of net 2016-hack recoveries after RRT redemptions, each within 18 months. The visible flow is ~6-7K LEO a day sent from bitfinexdep1 to the EOS token account with memo 'burn': 2.55M LEO burned plus 313K pending in the year to Oct 23, 2026 (~$26M, ~0.3% of supply). Those tokens are not destroyed: 47.8M of the 80.1M lifetime 'burned' sit in the issuer account, 32.3M were retired under a 1B cap that lets the issuer re-issue them, and the ERC-20 totalSupply is still 660M. Burns paused after Sep 2, 2026 while the pending balance kept growing. The 94,643 BTC hack haul has not moved since Feb 2022: the court awarded $0 restitution on Apr 4, 2025 and sent Bitfinex's claim to a contested ancillary forfeiture proceeding

Score anatomy

Demand

6 / 45: the stronger of two routes, plus adoption

Why would anyone hold it: does value reach the token, and is the network or product used today?

Holder routing engine input

iFinex pledges LEO buybacks worth 27% of gross revenue, but bought LEO goes to Bitfinex's own EOS issuer account (47.8M parked there) or is retired under a re-issuable cap: buy-and-hold, not a keyless burn

Small or discretionary flows, plumbing under 25%, or buy-and-hold into a treasurymedium confidenceHow this is scored

Revenue reality engine input

iFinex publishes no accounts; the only verifiable proxy is ~2.86M LEO (~$26M) bought for burning in the year to Oct 23, 2026, ~$96M gross if the 27% pledge holds; held one band below that

$5-25M/yrlow confidenceHow this is scored

Monetary usage engine input

Trading and fee discounts only: LEO pays no network fees and has no measurable collateral or payment use outside Bitfinex

Trading onlyhigh confidenceHow this is scored

Adoption ×3

LEO is used only on Bitfinex, a mid-tier exchange, for fee discounts; no network or outside use

Niche: real but small use, far behind its category leadersmedium confidenceHow this is scored

Two routes, the stronger counts

Revenue 2, minus 2 for routing 2 = cash flow 0. Money use 0. The engine is the stronger route: 0.

Soundness

4 / 40

Can a long-term holder trust the rules: supply, float, distribution and control?

Supply discipline ×3

A 3-of-6 Bitfinex multisig owns the ERC-20 controller and can mint without limit; the EOS issuer (2-of-3 Bitfinex accounts) can issue ~692M more under its 1B max (read on-chain Oct 23, 2026)

Over 15%/yr, or a key, company, committee or multisig can mint without limit or redirect issuancehigh confidenceHow this is scored

Float and unlocks ×1

No lockups or schedule: 919.9M of 967.7M on-chain LEO counts as circulating; the other 47.8M sit 'burned' but movable in Bitfinex's EOS issuer account, and burns paused on Sep 2, 2026 (313K pending)

Small tails only, or 85%+ of supply liquidmedium confidenceHow this is scored

Distribution ×2

All 1B LEO went to purchasers selected by iFinex in a May 2019 private placement at 1 USDT (no public sale, no lockup); ~99.7% of supply now sits in Bitfinex-controlled wallets

Insiders received over 50%, or one organization directs over 30% todayhigh confidenceHow this is scored

Decentralization and security ×2

The controller can disable all transfers, and its 3-of-6 owner can swap in a controller that moves any balance; the EOS contract is updatable by 2-of-3 Bitfinex accounts, all with no delay

One operator, pool, company or key can halt, rewrite, freeze balances, or upgrade value-holding contracts without delayhigh confidenceHow this is scored

Durability

4 / 15

Is it big, proven and reachable by institutions?

Scale ×1

$8.3B market cap (band 4), $237K/day median volume (band 0), no flags.

Uninvestable: under $10M market cap or under $250K/dayHow this is scored

Track record ×1

Trading since May 20, 2019 (7.4 years), but never through an 80% drawdown (worst ~68%, 2022), so level 3's stress test is unmet

3-5 years, or a rollback, coordinated chain-wide halt or restart, or a $50M+ exploit in the last 5 yearsmedium confidenceHow this is scored

Institutional access ×1

Valour Unus Sed Leo ETP in Europe; spot on OKX, Bitfinex and Gate with ~$0.1M/day of reported volume.

OTC trust, non-US product, or a pending US filingmedium confidenceHow this is scored

What would move it up

To reach T4 Speculative, one gate is still open:

Supply 0needs 1(open)

Tier outlook

Two-way ↗low likelihood

A ruling in the Bitfinex ancillary petition (US v. Lichtenstein, 1:23-cr-239) or any movement of the 94,643 BTC at bc1qazcm...wczt
Burns resuming from the pending balance (313K LEO on Oct 23, 2026, unburned since Sep 2) or stalling further
Any issue on EOS, Transfer from the zero address on the ERC-20, or a controller change (supply and security)
Audited iFinex revenue or a keyless burn (retire with max_supply cut, ERC-20 destroy) that would lift routed and revenue
Spot volume (~$0.24M/day 30-day median) and any new listing or ETP

Research report

Oct 23, 2026 · source confidence 75%

UNUS SED LEO is the utility token of iFinex, the operator of Bitfinex. All one billion tokens were sold in a 2019 private placement at one dollar each to cover a loss at the exchange's payment processor, and iFinex pledged to buy back tokens each month with at least 27% of its gross revenue, plus most of any money recovered from that loss or from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. The buyback runs daily and is visible on the EOS chain: about 2.9 million tokens, roughly $26 million, in the year to October 2026, or about 0.3% of supply. Those tokens are not destroyed in a keyless address. Most remain in the issuer's own account, the rest were retired under a cap that allows re-issue, and burns paused in early September while purchases kept accruing. iFinex publishes no accounts, so the 27% share cannot be checked. Control is concentrated: about 99.7% of tokens sit in Bitfinex wallets, a Bitfinex multisig can mint new tokens and freeze or move balances on Ethereum, and daily spot trading is about $0.24 million against a market value near $8.3 billion. The largest open question is the roughly 94,600 bitcoin seized from the 2016 hack, which has not moved and is the subject of a contested court proceeding with no ruling.

Structure (12 facts)

Chain: Ethereum ERC-20 'Bitfinex LEO Token' (MiniMe, solc 0.5.1, 660,000,000 minted 2019-05-21, totalSupply unchanged since) plus EOS token bitfinexleo1 (supply 307,653,658.9, max_supply 1,000,000,000, issuer bitfinexleo1)
What it is: exchange utility token: fee discounts on Bitfinex, monthly revenue-pledged buyback; no network role
Sale: May 2019 private placement of up to 1B LEO at 1 USDT to purchasers selected by iFinex, outside the US, no general solicitation, no lockup; ~$1B committed in ~10 days. Bitfinex's CTO first cited large outside buyers, then corrected that most was subscribed directly with iFinex by an investor. Proceeds offset the ~$850M Crypto Capital loss. The white paper reported iFinex 2018 gross profit of $418.2M
Supply on chain: Bitfinex API (leo.burn.supply, 2026-10-23): 919,857,851.9 circulating, 80,142,148.1 'burned'. On-chain: ERC-20 660,000,000 + EOS 307,653,658.9 = 967,653,658.9 issued; 47,795,807 sit in the EOS issuer account bitfinexleo1 (counted as burned); 32,346,341.1 were retired on EOS. Circulating = issued minus the issuer-account balance exactly
Mint authority: ERC-20: controller 0xf17e...5672 (LEOController) exposes issueTokens and burnTokens to its owner, a 3-of-6 Gnosis MultiSigWallet 0xc6cd...a828 (5,784 txs, active Oct 2026), with no limit or delay; upgradeController lets that owner install any controller, which in MiniMe can generateTokens, destroyTokens from any holder, move any balance via transferFrom and call enableTransfers(false). EOS: bitfinexleo1 active and owner permissions are 2-of-3 bitfinexsig1/2/5 with no wait, can issue up to ~692M more under max_supply and replace the contract code
Buyback commitment: white paper (May 2019): monthly buyback of at least 27% of iFinex consolidated gross revenue of the prior month (excluding Ethfinex) until no tokens are in commercial circulation, LEO paid as fees may count; 95% of net Crypto Capital recoveries and at least 80% of net 2016-hack recoveries (after RRT redemptions and costs) to buy and burn within 18 months
Burn flow: Bitfinex burn log: daily EOS transfers bitfinexdep1 -> bitfinexleo1 memo 'burn', ~6-7K LEO/day in Aug 2026; supply 922,403,644.9 (2025-10-19) to 919,857,851.9 (2026-09-03, unchanged since), so 2.55M burned plus 312,890 pending (2026-10-23) in the trailing year, ~$26M at ~$9.1; burns paused after 2026-09-01/02 while pending grows ~6.5K/day. Annual burns: ~32.5M (Nov 2020-Nov 2021), 8.5M (2022), 4.8M (2023), 3.5M (2024), 2.8M (2025)
Hack recovery: 94,643.488 BTC at bc1qazcm763858nkj2dj986etajv6wquslv8uxwczt never spent since Feb 2022 (mempool.space, 2026-10-23). Jan 2025: DOJ proposed in-kind return to Bitfinex; Apr 4, 2025: Judge Kollar-Kotelly awarded $0 restitution and sent ownership to a Rule 32.2 ancillary proceeding (16 third-party accountholder claims); XYZ Inc. moved to dismiss Bitfinex's petition on Apr 21, 2025, DOJ takes no position; orders issued Oct 1-8, 2026 with a Bitfinex filing due Oct 22. No hack-recovery LEO burn has occurred. Smaller seized lots moved to Coinbase Prime (12,267 BTC Oct 8, 2026; 264.9 BTC Oct 6), destination unconfirmed
Holders: ERC-20: 3,637 holders; Bitfinex Safe 0xc61b...193c holds 648.0M (98.2%), Bitfinex hot wallet 0x742d...f44e 9.66M. EOS: bitfinexcw55 257.79M, bitfinexdep1 2.06M. ~917.5M of 919.9M circulating (99.7%) sits in Bitfinex wallets; beneficial owners undisclosed
Regulatory: NYAG settlement Feb 23, 2021 (Bitfinex and Tether, $18.5M, end of New York business); CFTC orders Oct 15, 2021; Bitfinex terms exclude US persons. No US product
Liquidity: CoinGecko 24h $0.15M; 30-day median $0.24M/day (0.003% of market cap); 9 tickers, mostly CoinUp.io and Bitfinex; OKX LEO/USDT ~$7.5K/day
Market cap (approx): $8,308,000,000

Market figures at report date (Oct 23, 2026)

Price (approx): $9.03
All-time high / low: 10.61 (2026-05-04); worst drawdown ~68% (Jan to Oct 2022); ATL 0.80 (2019-12-24); +0.7% over 1y

Sources (15)

Compare with

How the ranking works and how LEO compares: see the full ranking. This entry as JSON:

GET https://tokens.10102.io/api/v1/tokenomics?symbol=LEO