In traditional markets, investing in new and promising projects is restricted to accredited investors. You need to meet a certain threshold set by the authorities to access such opportunities.
The decentralized and permissionless cryptocurrency space changed that. New token offerings are now held through launchpads — specialized platforms that help new initiatives gain attention, attract investors, and secure funding.
What’s so revolutionary about launchpads is how they open up investment opportunities to everyone, make things more transparent with blockchain, and build strong communities that help early-stage projects take off.
Of course, they’re not perfect. Regulatory gray areas and the occasional bad actor trying to exploit the system can cause issues. Despite that, the upside is just too huge to ignore. These platforms keep pushing boundaries and evolving, and there’s no doubt they’ll keep shaping the future like they’ve been doing for years.
Over the last half-decade, crypto has introduced several approaches, starting with the popular ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings,) which then led to the IEOs (Initial Exchange Offerings) and then the IDOs (Initial DEX Offerings). During the last crypto bull run, IGO (Initial Governance Offering) and INO (Initial NFT Offering) emerged to capitalize on the new demand.
Given that the fast-paced crypto market is always going through constant change and innovation, launchpads will also continue to evolve to keep up with new trends and participants.
For instance, Coin Terminal is a leading launchpad that has been seeing an upward trajectory in its adoption as it utilizes the open-access model to offer user-friendly services. The platform operates in over 49 countries, boasts more than 500,000 active users, and has over $1.8 bln in connected assets.
Launched in December 2023, Coin Terminal introduced a new launchpad mode with no membership token, helping it stand apart from other platforms in the market.
Now, moving into the new year, marked by greater enthusiasm in the crypto market with prices flying and adoption rising, Coin Terminal introduced upgrades to keep up with the demand and interest.
This includes an intuitive and engaging user interface that simplifies navigation for both project creators and investors with easy access to information, seamless participation, and mobile responsiveness to cater to a broader audience. Coin Terminal has further introduced the “Buy Now, Pay Later” feature, refundable sales with zero collateral, the ability to track all activity in one place, push notifications, and secure Google login.
These changes show just how the launchpads are growing and offering better services for a more mature and sophisticated industry.
The Future of Crypto Launchpads
Launchpads are evolving fast, and there are several factors shaping their evolution. One of the clear trends here is AI integration.
Artificial intelligence has already captured mainstream attention, and the crypto space has embraced it. In fact, it has been the most profitable narrative in crypto, with decentralized, autonomous, self-governing, and intelligent software programs called AI agents expected to lead the next trend. Moreover, the asset manager Bitwise estimates that AI and crypto will add a combined $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030.
As for how launchpads will benefit from AI, it can enhance their functionalities by streamlining processes, offering data-driven insights for decision-making, and improving security measures.
Now, automation is another important feature that can potentially drive the evolution of launchpads. It can simplify complex processes, especially for non-crypto natives new to the technical world of blockchain technology.
Automation can further help reduce errors, make funds distribution and management more efficient, and facilitate easier and faster token purchases.
Advanced security is a pretty clear trend, too. With the growing attention crypto is seeing, which translates to more interested capital, launchpads are going to have to kick up their protection layers several notches upwards.
Not to mention, the number of cyberattacks is also going up both inside and outside the crypto environment, making it critical for launchpads to utilize advanced encryption that can protect both personal and financial data.
We may even see launchpads making use of cold storage, which offers ultimate security in the crypto space. Besides keeping funds offline to reduce the chances of a hack, the use of third-party liquidity-locking solutions can help launchpads mitigate the risk of rug pulls or scams by developers. This will not only provide market stability but also give investors confidence in dealing with projects.
Given the speculative nature of crypto, which is also highly interconnected, it won’t be surprising to see launchpads integrate with DeFi. This will bring even more opportunities to investors in the form of yield farming, lending/borrowing, staking, liquidity provision, etc.
Another critical trend that can define the future of launchpads is better UX and UI, which the crypto sector lacks, in general. With crypto’s mainstream adoption happening at a rapid pace, launchpads are going to offer a more user-friendly interface, cross-platform capability, and multiple language support to make launchpads more accessible, further driving their usage.
Lastly, countries can implement regulations to promote safe practices. As we have seen these past few years, regulators around the world have started taking notice of the crypto space, which largely remains unregulated. But with Bitcoin ETFs, stablecoins, and DeFi gaining traction, authorities have started laying out their plans to take crypto under their wing, which can also extend to community-driven launchpads.
Overall, the future of launchpads is bright as they transform the investment landscape, offering new opportunities for both projects and investors.
