Crypto glossary
Pre-mine
A pre-mine is a block of coins created for founders, developers or insiders before a cryptocurrency is opened to public mining or sale.
Pre-mining means the creators generate part of the supply for themselves before outsiders can participate. In early proof-of-work altcoins this literally meant mining blocks privately before releasing the software; today the term is used more broadly for any allocation minted at genesis for the team, a foundation or early backers, as in Ethereum's genesis allocation from its 2014 sale.
A pre-mine can fund development, grants and security audits when no company is selling equity. Projects usually disclose it in the whitepaper or tokenomics docs, and it is a key reference when comparing a coin with fair-launched alternatives like Bitcoin.
The concerns are concentration and trust. A large undisclosed pre-mine lets insiders dump on later buyers, and even disclosed ones give a small group outsized governance power. Look for how big it is, whether it vests, and whether the wallets holding it can be tracked on-chain. A pre-mine combined with promises of fair distribution is a classic red flag.
Example
A new proof-of-work coin launches with 10% of its supply pre-mined into a foundation wallet, disclosed in the whitepaper and vesting over four years to pay developers.