Launchpad platform: Token issuance channel for emerging blockchain projects

Launchpad is a decentralized platform typically operated by blockchain projects or decentralized exchanges, aimed at helping emerging blockchain projects issue tokens to the public through IDO. These platforms provide fundraising channels for project parties while offering investors the opportunity to participate early in quality projects. The Launchpad introduced in this article mainly refers to meme launch platforms, characterized by low market capitalization of the listed tokens, almost 100% circulation, most of which are meme tokens, low issuance thresholds for users, and higher potential wealth effects.

The main functions of the Launchpad platform include:

1. Project fundraising: Provide financing channels for new blockchain projects by raising funds through the sale of tokens to the community for project development, marketing, etc.

2. Token distribution: Helping project parties distribute tokens to early investors, usually launching at a lower market value to attract user participation.

3. Traffic Acquisition: Popular events or IPs are an important way to acquire traffic for token issuance on the current Launchpad platform, which can attract a lot of attention.

4. Provide wealth effect: The on-chain Token market value is low. Once it gains market recognition or is listed on top exchanges in the future, early buyers may reap huge profits, thereby spreading rapidly within the community.

Since a certain platform achieved great success last year, the Launchpad track has been the first choice for many development teams and even public chain startups. However, most projects ultimately returned empty-handed, and the consensus on meme coins in the market is mainly concentrated on a few platforms.

In addition to the aforementioned platforms, the well-established meme coin on Solana recently launched its own Launchpad, with multiple meme coins under its umbrella having previously surpassed a market capitalization of 10 million USD, showing a good start. Another AI Agent Launchpad platform has recently introduced new participation methods and activities, with its native coin doubling in price within a week, and the launch of new activities seems to have had some effect.

Although these three Launchpad platforms are similar in nature, they each have their own unique features in terms of functionality. Next, we will explore their similarities and differences in detail, as well as the tokens worth paying attention to recently.

Platform A

This platform sparked a meme coin craze in the second half of 2024. At its peak, the platform could earn over 7 million dollars daily, and even with the current cooling of meme popularity, daily revenue remains at around 1.5 million dollars. Since its launch, the platform has earned a total of over 600 million dollars, making it a printing machine in the coin circle.

The platform's revenue is denominated in SOL. Unlike other Solana native projects, the platform has chosen to continuously sell its SOL for USDC. Since 2025, they have sold a total of SOL tokens worth $317 million, an astounding amount.

This practice does not look good, and combined with previous negative events such as live broadcasts and lawsuits, it makes the platform, although highly profitable, not a key focus of support from the Solana Foundation.

In terms of tokens, the platform has become the preferred choice for token issuance and is an entry traffic website covering various topics, including animals, homophones, news events, AI, and more. Basically, any concept can be turned into a meme coin here, so the platform does not particularly emphasize any specific token.

Platform B

In contrast, this platform is more politically orthodox. The main reason is that its native coin is the most representative meme coin on the Solana chain, which is a legendary meme coin with wealth effects, and it has also been a project deeply rooted in the Solana ecosystem for over four years. Besides recently gaining support from important figures, the project has also been seen at various offline events of Solana in the past. Compared to platform A's continuous token selling behavior, this platform is clearly more popular.

Mechanically, platform B behaves more selflessly. Its revenue is 1% of the transaction fees, which are used for:

• platform operation and growth
• Support validators, promote DeFi development and protect the network
• Buyback and burn platform tokens (relevant dashboard will be launched soon)

In addition, platform B has also collaborated with a certain DEX's LaunchLab, demonstrating its sincerity towards the Solana ecosystem.

The token with the highest market capitalization on platform B is inspired by a famous internet celebrity cat. This cat has nearly 2 million followers on social media due to its round face, big eyes, and adorable image, making it a globally recognized internet celebrity cat.

Other tokens worth noting include the namesake Token and a Token that became popular due to the founder's actions. The namesake Token was initially regarded as the official platform coin, reaching a market value of 30 million USD on the first day of the platform's launch. However, it later lost attention due to the emergence of various Tokens, leading to a price drop, and its current market value is only around 4 million USD.

Another token has drawn attention due to the platform founder's buying, burning, and repurchasing actions. In short, it experienced a price increase due to the founder's operations, but after the founder clarified that the purchasing actions were solely for support and publicly disclosed their holdings of multiple tokens, the market value of the token dropped from a peak of $13 million to around $4.3 million.

Platform C

This is an AI Agent Launchpad originally built on the Base chain, which has recently expanded to the Solana chain. Its business model is relatively simple; users need to consume platform tokens to create and trade tokens on the platform. However, as the AI craze subsides, the number of tokens successfully issued on the platform daily has dropped from over 100 to less than 10, resulting in a significant gap.

In response to this situation, platform C recently launched a major update:

1. Points System: This is a mechanism to encourage user participation for accessing pre-TGE token allocation, especially for large AI agent launches. These points directly affect the user's eligibility and rights to participate on the platform.

2. AI Agent Launch Mechanism: Launched with a fully diluted market value of 336,000 platform tokens (approximately 232.58k USD), all users gain equal early access through point commitments. Allocation is determined after a 24-hour point bidding period, and if the funding target is not reached, tokens are not minted, and all tokens and points are fully refunded.

3. Points Acquisition Method:

   • Earn by trading specific tokens
   • Earn by holding platform tokens
   • Earn points by creating content related to the platform
   • Earn by staking specific Tokens

4. Participation method:

   • Participate with points commitment, with a maximum of 0.5% of the total supply allocation of tokens.
   • Invest platform tokens, up to 566 to ensure maximum allocation
   • If participation exceeds expectations, the allocation will be diluted, and the excess tokens will be refunded.
   • After successful launch, you can claim the purchased Token on the corresponding page.

Overall, platform C is building a smaller but more loyal Launchpad, similar to some recent point-based token issuance activities launched by exchanges. If you are optimistic about the future development of this system, you may consider the following participation methods:

1. Directly purchase platform tokens to go long
2. Directly purchase staking tokens to go long
3. Participate in platform activities

The first two methods have simple logic, and the related tokens have recently seen significant increases. To participate in the activity, you need to accumulate points first, which can be achieved by holding the platform Token. To mitigate potential downside risks, you might consider shorting an equivalent amount of tokens on a centralized exchange to ensure that your returns are not affected by potential declines while participating in the activity.

Summary

In summary, these three Launchpad platforms each have their advantages and concerns: Platform A consolidates traffic entry with strong sell-offs and a high-profit model, but is questioned due to frequent cash-outs and negative events; Platform B engages with the community and offers low-rate profit-sharing to favor the ecosystem, but the attention is dispersed between platform tokens and secondary tokens, and its long-term appeal remains to be seen; Platform C's points mechanism and AI Agent layout explore new tracks with plenty of innovation, but has yet to show stable issuance capability, and whether user enthusiasm can be sustained will require time to test.

Looking ahead, the next wave of excitement in the Launchpad track hinges on "value realization" and "community resilience": can the platform balance short-term hype and long-term ecological construction through mechanism design? Can the project party continue to provide real utility rather than relying solely on flashy narratives? When the hot money retreats, which model will prove to be more sustainable will become an important indicator for market testing. For researchers and participants, in addition to paying attention to platform traffic and token price fluctuations, it is essential to deeply consider the core risks of each mechanism and future upgrade potential, in order to find projects that are truly worth long-term attention among many choices.