jakiro
In the past few years, the “innovation” scenario in the cryptocurrency primary market has always been in a regulatory gray area.Since 2018, American users have been almost completely excluded from the token launch.However, this pattern is being broken.
Spending US$375 million to acquire an on-chain fundraising platformEchoLess than a month later, crypto exchangeCoinbaseTake another crucial step.Overnight, its official token sale platform was officially announced, reopening the door for U.S. retail investors to participate in the token issuance in compliance with regulations.
Coinbase is innovating: a structural shift
1. From panic buying to algorithmic distribution: improving the fairness of retail investor participation
In the past, mainstream platforms such asBinanceLaunchpad,OKXJumpstart) mostly adopts a “lottery” or “first come first served” mechanism. The project side is more inclined to attract large investors to participate. Whether ordinary users can win the lottery often depends on luck.
The platform launched by Coinbase adopts an “algorithmic allocation” mechanism to give priority to small-amount users’ subscriptions and gradually expand to high-amount users.This design lowers the capital threshold and inhibits the space for high-frequency arbitrageurs, giving retail investors more real opportunities to participate.
2. Lock-up and anti-arbitrage mechanism: encourage long-term participation and avoid selling immediately after listing
Coinbase sets a mandatory lock-up period for project parties – within six months after issuance, project parties and their related entities are not allowed to conduct over-the-counter transactions or sell tokens.At the same time, the platform introduces incentive constraints on user behavior: if a user sells the tokens obtained within 30 days after the token is listed, the system will automatically downgrade the token in the future.
3. Standardized information disclosure: informed decision-making rather than blindly following the trend
On the Coinbase platform, project parties must disclose detailed information, including token economic model, fund usage, team background, development roadmap and potential risks.This disclosure standard is significantly higher than the depth of information currently available on most exchange launchpads.
Although other platforms also require certain disclosures, most focus on marketing materials and basic data, while Coinbase enforces standardization and strives to benchmark the prospectus of the IPO market.This helps investors truly understand what kind of project they are participating in, rather than placing bets based solely on “community buzz” or “FOMO sentiment.”
4. De-platform currency participation mechanism: decentralized arbitrage incentives, return to value judgment
At present, most exchanges need to hold platform currency (such as BNB, OKB) for new transactions. In order to qualify for participation, users are often forced to purchase platform ecological assets, thus exacerbating platform currency price fluctuations and amplifying risks.
Coinbase breaks this “token economic model dependence”: it does not require users to lock any platform currency, participation only requires USDC, and there are no handling fees throughout the process.Platform revenue comes from a fixed proportion of service fees paid by project parties.This mechanism allows “innovation” to return to its essence – selecting projects instead of speculating on platforms.
Making his debut: Is Monad worth taking part in?
The first project of the Coinbase token sale platform is Monad ($MON), a high-performance public chain under development that focuses on parallel computing, extremely high transaction throughput capabilities, and is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).Behind MonadJump Trading,Placeholder,Lattice,DragonflyInvested by many well-known institutions.
The public offering price is set at $0.025, which is a large discount compared to the previous pre-market trading price of about $0.06. The market expects that the price will have 2-3 times of short-term upside, especially under the aura of Coinbase’s debut.
However, it should be noted that Monad has only released 7.5% of the total supply this time, and its valuation is approximately US$2.5 billion, which is relatively high among similar L1 projects that have not yet launched their mainnet.The ecosystem has not yet been launched, the development progress is relatively early, and future performance is still uncertain.
In addition, the algorithmic allocation mechanism adopted by Coinbase will give priority to small-amount applications. Therefore, even if the lottery is successful, the allocation quota for individual users is usually small, and the actual investment opportunities are limited.
Therefore, for ordinary investors, Monad is a potential project, but it does not mean “guaranteed profit”.If you participate, it is recommended to control the subscription amount, look at the project development from a mid- to long-term perspective, and pay attention to the ecological construction after the mainnet goes online.
The era of crazy involution of CEX
Coinbase’s latest move is not an isolated case.In fact, in recent years, most mainstream exchanges have continued to increase their efforts on the “token launch” track, gradually building a “launch closed loop” from project screening and financing design to transaction launch and ecological support.Binance Launchpad, OKX Jumpstart, Bybit IDO, etc. that we often hear are all representatives of this trend.
This evolution from a “trade matching platform” to a “full-chain service provider in the primary market” is not only the result of the exchange’s own business expansion, but also reflects that the encryption industry is gradually entering a more structured and standardized period.
The following is a comparison of several leading exchanges:
It can be seen that the biggest difference between Coinbase and other platforms is that its design idea is closer to the “IPO + placement + lock-up” process of the traditional financial market, trying to guide the entire token issuance ecology to transition from the previous “speculation logic” to “system construction”.
Coinbase is not replicating the success of Binance, but is taking a new approach to build a new token issuance path that is more suitable for compliant users and for long-term investors.The essence of this model is to use standardized processes and risk control systems to inject stability and predictability into crypto assets.
For the entire encryption industry, Coinbase’s issuance platform will not only help restore the confidence of retail investors to participate, but may also become the “front door” for high-quality projects to enter the market in the future, reduce gray paths to bypass supervision, and establish a new trust foundation for the primary market.
Can the standardized encryption primary market escape from here?
The current industry is in urgent need of blockbuster projects and a distribution system that allows ordinary people to participate fairly and legally.Coinbase, may be blazing a new trail for this.
Rather than saying this is a “new innovation”, it is better to say that Coinbase is raising a question: Can the early financing mechanism of Web3 be replaced by something more orderly than hype, fairer than lottery, and more rational than blind investment?Through the acquisition of Echo,CoinbaseThe idea of an integrated channel “from fundraising to listing” is being implemented. If Echo’s offering tools are smoothly integrated with Coinbase’s distribution and compliance, a standardized primary market infrastructure will be formed in the United States, improving the efficiency from fundraising to liquidity.
It may not succeed immediately, but at least it opens an opening.It will take time to answer whether this opening can become the entrance to mainstream compliant users and high-quality projects in the future.
However, before the feast begins, we should probably pour a glass of cold water on it: Can this market, which is already no shortage of new coins, really be saved by another launch platform?Coinbase has restructured the rules of issuance, but perhaps its biggest challenge is finding truly valuable new assets for a saturated market.
