If you’ve been around long enough you may have seen the frenzy that was the “ICO bubble”. Well for no reason at all, or possibly all the ICO scams floating around, regulation froze the idea of ICOs — giving way for VCs and other private investors to step in. This set the landscape up for projects to be largely owned (and in many cases in crypto, controlled) by a small collective rather than the community.
We won’t go into detail on why that isn’t good for crypto or decentralization, but on the bright side, fair launches are starting to rise. At Builda, we see fair launches as a way to bring the community back to the heart and soul of Ethereum and more importantly, decentralization, by staying true to the original crypto ethos that has seemingly died more and more each year.
What Is A Fair Launch?
There is no perfect example of a fair launch, as it’s more of an idea. People may have different perspectives on what constitutes fair, with some ideas like fully community funded (no private investors), no team allocation, or perhaps even funded with only passive income, negating any potential real loss to those doing the funding. The focus for what is fair is evolving and can also be different for each project or protocol depending on the needs, as there are a lot of downstream effects to think about when deciding how to allocate a token.
Although the few examples above are some basic ideas that can be or have been used in fair launches when it comes to allocation — one very important factor in fairness is that anyone is able to participate, regardless of their socioeconomic status, or their governing country.
In this post we’ll just cover a few examples of projects or platforms leaning into the fair launch narrative, and perhaps some ideas at the end pulling everything together.
Morpheus
Morpheus put a new perspective on the term fair launch with their recent token, which allowed users to deposit stETH to earn MOR tokens — later allowing them to withdraw their deposited stETH and MOR tokens without ever spending any.
While we aren’t lawyers and don’t know the actual legal landscape for an ICO/IDO in comparison to a fair launch, the idea that a user can “invest” in a project without actually investing sounds pretty healthy. Morpheus also took things to the next level by ensuring they were totally funded by this fair launch, and no other investors.
Pump.Fun
Taking more of the memecoin and “fun” approach to fair launches, Pump.Fun ensures tokens launch on their platform with “no pre-sale and no team allocation”, while offering a 4chan-inspired message board to facilitate everything.
While Morpheus was an example of a single serious project seeking funding in return for their token, Pump.Fun allows anyone to spin up and launch a memecoin in minutes (even you), so long as it is fairly launched. Pump is kind of a frenzy of fair launches, that really leans into the memecoin hype narrative, and embraces the craziness.
ConstitutionDAO <> PeopleDAO
Deserving nothing short of an honorable mention in fair launches is the entire ConstitutionDAO & PeopleDAO saga. One that caught a lot of mainstream attention, communities banded together to bid up the U.S. constitution, raising over $40 million in a short time for the then upcoming Sotheby’s auction.
Even though the DAO failed to successfully win the constitution by being slightly outbid (it probably doesn’t help that the max bid was publicly known), it didn’t stop something great from forming afterwards.
What happened next was the creation of $PEOPLE, a token that allowed only those who contributed to ConstitutionDAO originally to claim it (and later burn it for the equivalent amount of ETH if they desire). However, PeopleDAO was formed for those that didn’t want to burn their tokens for the respective ETH, and instead wanted to govern a newly formed DAO that is “for the people”. PeopleDAO, which incubates sub-DAOs and projects that further the Web3 narrative and social good, was formed fairly thanks to those who wanted to make a part of history, and decided to do it in a different way after falling short.
DegenPad
Last but not least, a recent example found on Farcaster is DegenPad, a “fair launch” launchpad built directly into Frames. Users can take advantage of the on-chain tipping function which lets them fund upcoming “Degen Projects” directly in-app on Farcaster.
If you aren’t aware, $DEGEN was a fair-launch token for Farcast users based on engagement and followers several months ago, which inspired the creation of DegenPad — a fair launch launchpad funded with a token that was fairly launched. Quite a mouthful, but nothing short of fair.
Final Thoughts & Future
While there are many more examples of fair launches and what may define one outside of this article, it’s obvious that they’re still being fine-tuned to see what works best.
What we know, is that there are more DeFi and other tooling available to make the exploration of fair launches all the more possible — and whether or not they become a trending or popular narrative depends on if the community is strong enough to want it (and loud enough) rather than sticking to what we’ve all been herded into the last several years — a landscape dominated by VCs, whales, and those with “influence” on social media platforms.
Stay Tuned
Builda is actively engaged with the fair launch idea and supporting it where we can, to help bring things back to the community. We’ll likely be publishing a more in-depth article soon on the various fair launch mechanisms and their implications in the market.
