Observation and personal views from BonnaZhu of Nothing Research Partner, the following content does not constitute any investment advice.
I heard that pump.fun is really going to launch a token this time, and with $PUMP as a benchmark, the launch platform will undergo a revaluation. However, as mentioned in this article, the launch platforms have diverged into two paths:
One type is the permissionless Fair Launch represented by Pumpfun, and the other is the Coordinated Launch empowered project through organized issuance. Rather than saying they are in competition, it is more accurate to say their tracks have completely diverged.
1) Fair Launch: First comes the price, then the story
Pumpfun belongs to the category of speculative asset issuance that everyone can participate in, with no threshold and no presale. Its essence is: I throw tokens into the market, and everyone uses capital and emotions to hype it up. Only after the market cap emerges will the project gain attention and prominent scholars' debates, that is, 'first comes the price, then the story', and under the atmosphere of speculative markets, it relies on price to attract more people to watch, forming self-propagation and further pushing up the price.
Pumpfun's speculative assembly line is quite mature, and after this token launch, the window for completely decentralized Launch platforms in the short term has become small. Moreover, before Pumpfun had tokens, the preceding Meme platforms did not pose a threat to Pumpfun.
2) Coord Launch: First comes the story, then comes the price
The opportunities are more with this new batch of Coordinated Launch platforms, which emphasize 'first comes the story, then comes the price', allowing issuers to leverage Kaito AI and Loud's reach to build recognition among KOLs and communities, and through the user screening mechanism of the Launchpad team, distribute tokens to suitable holders, ultimately realizing value on DEX and other CEX liquidity venues.
This is the core competitiveness of a Coordinated Launch platform:
- Attention Empowerment:
Helping issuers raise funds, build communities and buying pressure
- Screening Quality Holders:
Reducing paper hands and witch users
- Optimizing Token Distribution:
Designing a reasonable token distribution to ensure long-term value
- Connecting to High-Level Liquidity Platforms:
Helping issuers deliver tokens to larger CEXs
In my view, the most important and challenging aspect is actually point 4. The ability to deliver assets to top CEXs reflects the Launchpad team's capability to screen and support quality assets/narratives, and reveals that the valuation logic of Coordinated Launch platforms and Fair Launch platforms is quite different:
3) The sifting of sand vs To liquidity incubation
The profit model of Fair Launch platforms is a sifting-through-sand model, where transaction fee sharing + graduation cuts are the core of valuation. Therefore, it must occupy the mindset of the issuer group and low-threshold issuer users to ensure monopoly at the issuance end.
The essence of Coordinated Launch platforms is actually the incubation of To liquidity, relying on financing shares obtained through incubation + advisor token shares. Therefore, while there may not necessarily be a need for an issuer review system, the strategy must be quality-focused. Ultimately, holding the platform tokens of such Coordinated Launch platforms is equivalent to obtaining cash flow from financing shares or new issue vouchers while indirectly holding a basket of quality potential asset indices.
4) Holo + Kaito + Loud + Meteora Combination
As for this form, I have yet to see a platform achieve it.
Believe actually had a great opportunity before. However, in my view, its mistake lies in its operational strategy of focusing on incubation for Coordinated Launch, while its business logic was that of Fair Launch's volume, overly emphasizing stimulating trades and increasing fees, rather than focusing on further delivering key assets to larger liquidity platforms, nor securing an upside share for the platform in incubation projects, leading to an inability to further amplify momentum.
Later, while still relying on 'volume' and 'fees' rather than incubation upsides to survive, they suddenly announced the implementation of issuer reviews, and naturally, the volume gradually decreased.
The new issuance group led by Holo mentioned in the text (Holoworld AI + Kaito AI + Loud + Meteora) does indeed come close to the ideal form I described above, especially when seeing:
- $MIRAI and $LOUD quickly launched on Moonshot
- $MIRAI quickly integrated with Binance Alpha
- $MIRAI and $LOUD shares given to Holo token Proxy $AVA
All of these indicate their efforts in expanding liquidity venues and incubation for issuers. Although it must be pointed out that the launch of $LOUD was not ideal, exposing many shortcomings in this new group's collaboration mechanism, and Holo did not effectively assist Loud in correcting some overly 'experimental' designs in token allocation, the potential of this 'alliance' has emerged. I hope the team can further learn from previous experiences and truly become a launcher and index for quality assets.