To make a bold vision a reality, founders need a war chest to help them get started, build the product, market it to the masses, attract and retain users and their attention, advance the technology, beat the competition, and then keep delivering on promises. However, while the crypto sector has been attracting a lot of capital, it isn’t as easy to get your idea noticed and raise funds, especially if you don’t have any industry connections.
On the other side of this spectrum are crypto enthusiasts, who want their investments to give them 10x to 100x returns, but that usually requires getting in early, at the launch stages of a project. Here, crypto launchpads offer an excellent platform that brings innovative and emerging blockchain ventures and interested and excited individual investors together. These mutually beneficial platforms streamline fundraising mechanics and foster innovation and collaboration in the industry.
With many crypto startups seeking fundraising and investors looking to finance new projects, launchpads can help next-generation protocols hit the ground running at minimal cost and propel the crypto space forward.
Aligning Creator & Investor Interests
A crypto launchpad typically hosts token sales for new crypto projects to help fundraise and provide investors with high-quality, curated investment opportunities while empowering them to make informed decisions. Such platforms also ensure a smoother participation experience.
These platforms are particularly popular for giving investors early access at an economical rate before the tokens become available to the public on crypto exchanges. For instance, one of the biggest successes of the 2021 bull market, Axie Infinity (AXS), was sold on Launchpad at $0.10 before it hit a peak of $165 a year later.
“Previously, the opportunity to invest in gaming-changing projects was only reserved for those with access to huge capital such as venture capital funds. But now, crypto launchpads offer a more democratized way of raising money and give retail access to promising projects and finding hidden gems,” said Hatu Sheikh, the founder of the successful crypto launchpad Ape Terminal. The launch terminal has hosted several projects, with many already offering double-digit investment returns.
This way of raising money lowers barriers to entry and essentially gives everyone equal opportunity with no back-door dealings, skewing the results for the public. These platforms further promote fair token distribution by ensuring tokens are allocated equitably among participants. Mechanisms like token vesting schedules and whitelisting meanwhile mitigate the risk of concentration of power and encourage long-term community engagement.
In addition to capital for early-stage development, launchpads also provide developers and entrepreneurs access to tokenomics advice and mentorship to help guide the project in pursuing its goals, marketing inputs, and other ancillary services. Crypto launchpads help projects gain visibility and traction in the hyper-competitive crypto market through these services.
To be incubated by a launchpad, projects must be further vetted and go through a due diligence process, which is particularly essential in decentralized finance (DeFi). Hence, we need crypto launchpads for the wild and vast crypto ecosystem to flourish.
Fostering Crypto Evolution
While launchpads are helping both builders and investors, it is important to find the right incubators as not all are legit, and many end up scamming or rug-pulling, leaving token holders wrecked. To make the right choice, both projects and investors need to find a launchpad with a good reputation and transparent information. Effective platforms with a good track record here can make launchpads a foundational building block of the crypto, DeFi, and the entire Web3 space.
“We’ve helped many innovative projects raise funds and build a community of passionate investors with a special focus on those platforms that aim to have a lasting impact on crypto and beyond,” said Sheikh. The Ape Terminal launchpad features native liquidity to projects and yields without inflation to users. Through liquidity and market-making strategies, launchpads play a crucial role in facilitating price discovery, stabilizing token prices, creating liquidity, and promoting market efficiency.
As the industry continues to expand and large organizations join crypto, retail needs better access to quality projects. Against this backdrop, launchpads have emerged as a vital part of the crypto ecosystem, providing an infrastructure for platform launches, investor contribution, and community involvement.
Overall, web3 is the hotbed of innovation, and in this rapidly growing, launchpads have created a way to put those projects in the limelight that deserve investor attention and build the future of crypto.
