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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
It’s important to understand how new crypto tokens are initially distributed and who gets access to the first offering of a new coin, whether you’re an investor or thinking of launching a token of your own. Mar 3, 2023, 9:14 p.m. UTCDespite the professed egalitarianism of cryptocurrency, new token distributions can skew in favor of private investors, the founders of the token or those who have been tipped off about a new crypto investment before launch.Check token distributions of popular coins and you may be shocked to learn that huge swathes of so-called decentralized networks are reserved for early investors or founders, leaving the general public as second-class investors.See Also: What Is Tokenomics and Why Is It Important?The promise of a “fair launch” remedies these inequalities. The concept refers to projects that provide everyone with an equal chance of acquiring tokens, no matter their status, meaning that no party is privileged to an investment above any other.Fair launches gained popularity among those who think the market is rigged against them, jaded by whitelists, venture capital allocations and pre-mines that skew favor to the few in the know over the general population.Crypto intelligence platform Messari lists the most popular fair launch tokens, which include bitcoin (BTC), monero (XMR) and sushi (SUSHI).Fair launches explainedA fair launch takes place in a decentralized crypto network where tokens are earned, owned and governed by the community from the outset. It should make sure anyone is able to participate. A fair launch ensures there is no early access, pre-mine or allocation of tokens.Still, what constitutes “fair”? A useful framework proposed by crypto researcher Hasu and Paradigm investment partner Arjun Balaji in 2019 described fairness as something that offers equal opportunity to acquire coins over a long period of time. They contended that a launch is fairer “the more potential buyers are aware that a project exists.” If the entire supply is sold within a month, they ask, “did the market really have a chance for proper price discovery?”Hasu and Balaji also champion relative price equality – that “no group or person that can acquire the token at a sizable discount to the market price.” Interestingly, they don’t disavow early token access entirely, claiming that certain discounts are justified if funds are locked up under certain conditions such as a long lockup time, the rationale being that early investors should be rewarded for accepting risk.Like with most things in crypto, it’s not always helpful to assess a launch in terms of a binary “fair/unfair.” Some launches are more fair than others; given the myriad token distribution mechanisms that projects can choose from, fairness can be difficult to judge without the benefit of hindsight.Why do fair launches matter?Fair
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