Author: WOO
Reprint: Lawrence, Mars Finance
Launchpad is a decentralized platform often operated by blockchain projects or decentralized exchanges (DEX) to help emerging blockchain projects issue tokens to the public through IDO. These platforms provide fundraising channels for project parties while offering investors opportunities to participate early in quality projects. The Launchpad introduced in this issue refers more to meme launching platforms, which are different from traditional Launchpads in that the market values of launched tokens are lower, nearly 100% circulating, most tokens are memes, and the barriers to issuing tokens are lower, leading to higher potential wealth effects.
Function:
Project fundraising: Providing funding channels for new blockchain projects by raising funds through the sale of tokens to the community for project development, marketing, etc.
Token distribution: Helps project parties distribute tokens to early investors, usually launching at a lower market value to attract user participation;
Traffic acquisition: Hot events or IPs are important ways for current Launchpad platforms to gain traffic, able to attract significant attention;
Providing wealth effect: On-chain token values are low, and once recognized by the market, FOMO buying or future listings on top CEXs may yield huge profits for early buyers, rapidly spreading within the community;
The LaunchPad track has been the top choice for many development teams and even public chain startups since Pump Fun achieved massive success last year, but ultimately many have returned empty-handed, as the consensus around meme coins has gathered at Pump Fun.
But besides Pump Fun, the well-established meme coin BONK has also launched its own LaunchPad - Letsbonk.fun, with several meme coins peaking at over 10 million USD in market value, marking a good start.
The leading Virtuals Protocol for AI Agent LaunchPad has recently launched new participation methods and activities. Without discussing how its tokens perform, the parent token $VIRTUAL has doubled in price within a week, and the launch of new activities seems to have had a certain effect.
So, while Pump Fun, LetsBonk, and Virtuals Protocol are all LaunchPads, what are the functional differences? What tokens should we pay attention to under these three platforms recently? Let's take a look at this with WOO X Research.
Pump Fun
Pump Fun is certainly not unfamiliar; the meme craze of the second half of 2024 started here, with the ability to earn over 7 million USD in a single day at its peak. Even now, during the cooling of memes, it still maintains about 1.5 million USD daily, having earned over 600 million USD since its launch, undoubtedly a money printer in the crypto circle.
Pump Fun's income is all priced in SOL. Typically, native projects on Solana, to avoid falling into the reputation of 'scamming investors' and to be closer to Solana officials, commonly stake the SOL they earn or operate their own nodes. However, Pump Fun goes against the trend, continuously selling their SOL for USDC.
Since 2025, they have sold a staggering total of 317 million USD worth of SOL tokens.
Such actions not only have a poor visual impression, but combined with previous live broadcasts and lawsuits, Pump Fun, although super profitable in the Solana ecosystem, is not a foundation-supported entity.
In terms of its meme coins, Pump Fun has become the preferred platform for token issuance, serving as a traffic entry site, not a niche track, so various themes can be seen, including animals, puns, news events, AI, etc. Basically, anything you can think of as a concept can become a meme coin. Therefore, in terms of platform features, the tokens do not particularly emphasize any specific characteristics, and the preferred platform for token issuance remains Pump Fun.
LetsBonk
Compared to Pump Fun, LetsBonk is clearly more politically legitimate, primarily because BONK is the most representative meme coin on the Solana chain, which has a wealth effect as a meme coin and has been deeply rooted in Solana for over four years. Besides recent endorsements by Toly, BONK has been seen in various offline activities related to Solana. In terms of relationships, compared to Pump Fun's frequent selling of coins, BONK is clearly more likable.
In terms of platform mechanisms, LetsBonk is also more selfless than Pump Fun, with revenue being 1% of transaction fees, which will be used for:
Platform operation and growth
Give BONKsol validators to promote DeFI growth & protect the network
Repurchase and destroy BONK (coming soon to the dashboard)
In addition, the collaboration with Raydium's LaunchLab indicates that LetsBonk is quite sincere in its commitment to the Solana ecosystem.
Currently, the token with the highest market value on Letsbonk is Hosico, worth 38 million USD, inspired by a Scottish Fold cat named 'Hosico.' Hosico, born on August 4, 2014, is a golden shorthair cat with a round face, big eyes, and a charming image, boasting nearly 2 million followers on social media platforms like Instagram, becoming a globally recognized internet celebrity cat.
Other tokens worth paying attention to include the eponymous token Letsbonk and Grassiot.
Letsbonk was initially regarded as the official platform token representative, and on the first day of the platform's launch, the token's market value reached a high of 30 million USD. However, due to the emergence of various tokens competing for attention, it has resulted in a decline, and its current market value is only 4 million USD.
The explosion of Grassiot is due to the founder of BONK, TOM, purchasing the coin and subsequently destroying it, only to buy it back again. In simple terms, it gained token price increases through the founder's attention, but later TOM stated that the purchase was merely to support, without any insider knowledge or being a developer, and publicly disclosed that he also holds Hosico and LetsBonk, revealing his purchase quantities. The market value of Grassito has also dropped from a peak of 13 million USD to about 4.3 million USD at the time of writing.
Virtuals Protocol
Initially built on Base, the AI Agent LaunchPad has since expanded to the Solana chain. The business model is straightforward: users need to consume VIRTUAL to create and trade tokens on the platform, but now that the AI craze has subsided, currently less than 10 tokens are successfully issued per day on VIRTUAL, a significant drop from at least 100 tokens being issued previously.
Recently, they have significant updates.
Virgen Points: This system is an important mechanism of Virtuals Protocol to encourage user participation, used for accessing pre-TGE token allocations, especially for 'giga AI Agent launches.' These points directly impact users' eligibility and rights to participate on the launch platform.
The AI agent launches with a fully diluted market value of 336,000 $VIRTUAL (approximately 232.58k USD), with all Virgins obtaining equal early access through Virgen Points. The distribution is determined after a 24-hour points bidding period, and if the funding target is not met, no tokens will be minted, and all $VIRTUAL and points will be fully refunded.
Earning methods:
Trenchor Points: Earned by trading Sentient and Prototype Agent tokens.
$VIRTUAL Points: Earned by holding $VIRTUAL tokens.
Yap for Points: Earn points by creating content related to Virtuals Protocol (such as X posts). According to an X post dated April 23, 2025, the event encourages users to 'Yap' (i.e., participate in discussions or create content), with submission methods referenced in the related submission link. The post mentions 'Stronger signal. Higher rewards,' implying that more influential content may earn more points.
$VADER Stakers: Earned by staking $VADER tokens.
How to participate?
1. Staking Points:
Using Virgen Points to commit to participation can yield a token allocation of up to 0.5% of the total supply.
The final allocation depends on the ratio of points you commit relative to the total committed points.
Excessive commitment can increase the chances of obtaining the maximum allocation.
If the Genesis Launch is successful, the points used for allocation will be destroyed, and the remaining points will be refunded.
2. Invest in $VIRTUAL tokens:
A maximum investment of 566 $VIRTUAL to ensure maximum allocation.
If participation exceeds expectations, the allocation will be diluted, and excess $VIRTUAL will be refunded.
3. Claim tokens:
After the successful Genesis Launch, go to the Agent page to claim the purchased tokens.
If the launch fails, all points and $VIRTUAL will be fully refunded.
In summary, Virtuals Protocol is building a smaller, more loyal LaunchPad, somewhat similar to the recent points-based new activity launched by Binance Wallet, essentially hoping that users can participate more in the ecosystem. If you continue to believe in the effectiveness of this system in the future, then there are three ways worth participating:
Directly purchase $VIRTUAL tokens to go long.
Directly purchase $VADER tokens to go long.
Participate in events.
The first two logics are straightforward, and both $VIRTUAL and $VADER have seen astonishing increases recently, making them the biggest beneficiaries of the event. To participate in the event, you must first accumulate points, which can be done by holding $VIRTUAL tokens in your wallet. Additionally, if you are concerned about potential future declines in $VIRTUAL, you can short the same amount of $VIRTUAL on centralized exchanges. The benefit is that you can ensure participation in the event without being overwhelmed by potential declines in profits, and the event is designed not to incur losses, only resulting in lower-than-expected profits. However, the downside is that it requires additional funds to short, which can significantly reduce overall capital utilization.
Conclusion
Overall, Pump Fun, LetsBonk, and Virtuals Protocol each have their advantages and concerns: Pump Fun solidifies traffic entry with strong sell-offs and profit models but is frequently questioned due to cashing out and negative events; LetsBonk is appealing to the ecosystem through community engagement and low fee sharing, yet the distraction of attention between platform tokens and secondary tokens raises questions about its ability to attract long-term participation; Virtuals Protocol introduces a point mechanism and AI Agent as a new entry into innovative tracks, but it has yet to demonstrate stable issuance energy, and whether user enthusiasm can be sustained remains to be seen.
Looking ahead, the next wave of the LaunchPad track hinges on 'value realization' and 'community resilience': Can the platform balance short-term popularity with long-term ecological construction through mechanism design? Can project parties continue to provide tangible utility rather than relying solely on grand narratives? When the hot money withdraws, which model will prove 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 crucial to deeply consider the core risks and future upgrade potentials of each mechanism to find the one truly worthy of long-term bets amidst the competition.
