When it comes to fair launches, many people might immediately think of inscriptions, memes, or community-driven initiatives. Everyone participates, resisting authority, wealth myths... these impression tags seem to endow it with a natural halo of sanctity.

Undoubtedly, fair launch has already become an important narrative concept in this cycle. From the craze of Bitcoin inscriptions, to gas mining, on-chain lotteries, and now the booming meme super cycle, the shadow of fair launch is everywhere. Although this topic has been hot for a long time, I seem to have never thought deeply about it; upon careful reflection, there still seem to be many things worth discussing around the topic of fair launch.

What exactly is a fair launch?

To understand fair launches, we first need to clarify what fairness is.

The explanation provided by Baidu is: fairness refers to impartiality. Fair means just and reasonable, capable of gaining wide support; equality means that all participants (individuals or groups) have their various attributes (including input, gains, etc.) averaged.

This is actually a relatively broad concept; in Web3, fairness is more about the distribution of chips. So my understanding of fairness is

1. Anyone can participate

2. Unified participation threshold

As long as these two conditions are met, I believe that the distribution method can be considered fair.

And what about launches? As the name suggests, it is the start of the project, the action of distributing tokens. However, for a project, the fairness of the distribution structure is more important. Any reserves are definitely not fair, any pre-mining is certainly not fair, and any privileges or special treatments cannot be considered fair.

So now it's clear, when fairness and launch are put together, it must at least meet the following conditions:

1. Anyone can participate

2. Unified participation threshold

3. Open and transparent (no insider information)

4. Full circulation (no reserves)

5. Not relying on centralized reviews (no privileges)

Only when all of the above five conditions are met can it be considered a fair launch. Looking back at this standard, how many truly fair launches have there been?

VC coins are certainly not fair; teams reserve tokens, institutions can get chips at a lower cost than retail investors, along with various lock-ups, foundations, consultants, and all sorts of flashy schemes to exploit retail investors, leading to everyone calling for their heads now.

Inscriptions are relatively fair, but the deployers of inscriptions have privileges and time advantages, equivalent to pre-mining.

Meme coins, and various other schemes go without saying.

Seeing this, we must have realized that there is no such thing as a truly fair launch; fair launch is merely an abused pseudo-issue.


Why are people enthusiastic about fair launches?

The old hands in the crypto world are quite clever; they certainly know that fair launches are merely an idealistic notion. So what is the so-called fairness that retail investors want?

There is no absolute fair launch, but there can be relative fair launches.

The fairness that retail investors want is

1. I can participate

2. I can make money (relative to others with greater opportunities)

Why did inscriptions ignite the narrative of fair launches?

Because the launch method of inscriptions is relatively the fairest; the cost of obtaining chips is almost the same for everyone. Furthermore, inscriptions brought real wealth creation effects. Ordi, Sats, Rats made countless people rich overnight; who wouldn't want such an opportunity to fall upon them?

Later, inscriptions spread to other chains like ETHS, BNBS, SOLS, etc. Although these have now faded away, at that time, they also allowed early participants to earn a lot.

Later, there was also ZKFair's gas-burning mining, where the project team distributed tokens according to the proportion of gas consumed by users, which can be considered a relatively innovative distribution method. But now it seems to be just another case of cashing out quickly. I participated in this myself, and while it peaked at 70 times, I exited at 2 times. 🤣

Later, there was the community coin Nostr's launch, which adopted an innovative on-chain staking lottery method; I wrote about this in a previous article. Nostr's coin price also had glorious moments, but now it's fallen to the ground. (Too many examples tell us that most project outcomes only lead to regret. 😂 Off topic)

In the current meme super cycle, despite conspiracy groups, despite insider trading, despite PVP, there is still a strong wealth creation effect, potential for class mobility, and hope.

There is a classic line in the movie (The Shawshank Redemption): "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." The possibility of changing fate may just be this hope, which is the fairness we retail investors desire.


How far can the narrative of fair launches go?

In short, forever and ever.

In fact, the entire Web3 narrative started with fair launches, namely Bitcoin. The fervor of fair launches in this cycle can also be seen as a renaissance. The birth of Bitcoin was done this way, and early altcoins also largely agreed on fair launches. Until Ethereum and the VC era it ushered in, the consensus on fair launches in the crypto world was trampled.

But the core spirit of the entire Web3 is anti-authoritarian, decentralized, and pursues fairness and freedom. This has always been the ideal that fair launches strive for. No matter how technology innovates, no matter how the ecosystem develops, this ideal will not change.

I previously wrote a tweet expressing my support for the noble and pure ideal of the spirit of crypto:

https://x.com/0x_WUDAO/status/1840614418201423881

But this post seems to have elevated today's theme; the ideals of our retail investors may not be that lofty, but they can be lofty.

In fact, making money and ideals are not in conflict at all. What I want to express is not an either-or situation. Returning to the topic of fair launch, we can both make money and defend ideals, that is, earn money while standing tall! We should denounce all unfairness and lack of transparency, rectify wrongs, and maintain our original intentions.

It's time to re-establish the consensus on fair launches.