Launching a token
Open Create in the top bar. You pick how your token trades, fill in its details, choose a type and confirm in your wallet. You need to be signed in to launch. If you are not, the app asks you to sign a free sign-in message when you press Create.
Not every feature has reached every network. Network and addresses says what is available where.
What every launch gets
- A fixed supply. Every token has 1,000,000,000 tokens, and nothing can ever mint more.
- Terms fixed at launch. The fee, its split, any holder tax and the anti-sniping window are locked in when you launch. Later protocol changes only apply to later launches.
- Liquidity locked forever. Once your token's liquidity is in its Uniswap pool, nobody can withdraw it, including you.
- Non-custodial. You launch and trade from your own wallet. StartupOS never holds your keys.
- Approved launches. StartupOS signs off every launch before it can go on chain.
- Anti-sniping. For the first moments of trading, no other wallet can take a large share. See Protection at launch, below.
Launching costs only gas
There is no platform launch fee. You pay only the network gas for the launch transaction. The costs that come later, from trading, are on Fees and burns.
Choose a market
The first choice on the form is where your token trades.
| Bonding curve | Instant | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it trades | On its own bonding curve, then in a Uniswap V4 pool | In its own Uniswap V4 pool from the launch transaction |
| Graduation | When the curve sells out | None |
| Holder tax | Not available | Optional |
Bonding curve. Your token sells along a curve, and the price rises as people buy. The curve sells out after about $14,170 of net buying. Your token then graduates: its liquidity moves into a Uniswap V4 pool and is locked there, and from then on its fees work as they do on an Instant token. See The pool and the liquidity lock.
Instant. Your token opens its own Uniswap V4 pool in the launch transaction, with the whole supply in the pool. Trading starts at once and there is nothing to graduate.
The form shows this choice only when both markets are open. When Instant is available, it is selected by default.
How the price moves
Both markets start your token cheap and let buying push the price up. They do it differently, and the numbers below are the ones the launchpad uses today.
The bonding curve
Your token sells out of a shared pot against a reserve of your pair currency. Every buy takes tokens out of the pot and puts the pair currency in. The pot shrinks while the other side grows, so each buyer pays a little more than the last. Nobody sets the price. It is whatever the two sides of that pot say it is.
Each curve is sized when you launch. Its starting reserve is $5,000 worth of your pair currency, at that moment's price, and from then on it is fixed in the pair currency for your token. So the dollar figures below are what the curve is worth at launch. Afterwards they move with the price of your pair currency.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Total supply | 1,000,000,000 |
| Sold on the curve | 793,100,000 (79.31%) |
| Held back for the pool | 206,900,000 (20.69%) |
| Starting token reserve | 1,073,000,000 |
| Starting pair-currency reserve | $5,000 worth, priced at launch |
That opens your token at a market cap of about $4,660. The curve sells out after about $14,170 of net buying, and the market cap is then about $68,500. On an ETH pair, at an ETH price of $2,420, the sell-out comes after about 5.9 ETH of net buying.
So the price rises 14.7 times across the curve, every time, on every token, whatever the pair currency. Buyers also pay the 1% trade fee on top (none on Tax-Free), so the total they spend is a little higher.
The curve is back-loaded
The rise is not spread evenly. The first half of the curve is cheap, and the last quarter is most of the money.
| Curve sold | Net buying so far | Price, against launch |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | $399 | 1.2x |
| 25% | $1,133 | 1.5x |
| 50% | $2,931 | 2.5x |
| 75% | $6,220 | 5.0x |
| 100% | $14,168 | 14.7x |
Half the curve is gone for about $2,930, at 2.5 times the launch price. Getting from there to graduation takes about $11,240 more. Early buyers get the cheap half, and the climb steepens from there.
What graduation costs
When the curve sells out, the raise and the 206,900,000 tokens held back move into a Uniswap V4 pool and lock. A one-off fee comes off first, and which one depends on what your token is paired with:
| Market | Graduation fee |
|---|---|
| Paired with ETH | A flat 0.01 ETH |
| Paired with another token | 2% of what the curve raised |
It is one or the other, never both. The fee is taken from both sides of the pool in step: the matching share of the held-back tokens goes to the treasury with it, so the pool opens at exactly the curve's closing price. There is no charge for creating the pool, and nothing is burned at graduation. See The pool and the liquidity lock.
An Instant pool
An Instant token skips the curve. The whole supply goes straight into a Uniswap V4 pool in the launch transaction, as a single position covering the full price range.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Opening value, ETH pair | About 0.98 ETH for the whole supply (about $2,380 at the same ETH price) |
| Opening value, any other pair | About 1 whole unit of the pair token for the whole supply. Paired with USDG, that is about $1 |
| Price range | From the opening price upward, with no ceiling |
| Supply in the pool | All 1,000,000,000 |
There is no sell-out target and nothing to graduate. The price is whatever trading makes it from the first block, moving the way any Uniswap pool moves: buying pushes it up, selling pushes it down, and the size of the move depends on how much is traded against how deep the pool is.
A curve stops at about $68,500 and the token moves on to its Uniswap pool. An Instant pool has no ceiling at all.
What you fill in
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Yes | The display name, e.g. MoonShot |
| Ticker | Yes | A short symbol, automatically uppercased and shown with a $ |
| Description | Yes | A short pitch. The field stops at its limit. |
| Coin image | Yes | Your token's square image |
| Coin banner | No | Skip it and your coin image is used. If you add one, it must be a different file. |
| Website | No | A normal web address |
| No | An x.com/handle link | |
| Telegram | No | A t.me/handle link |
The panel beside the form previews your token card as you type. Images are stored on IPFS, so the artwork does not live only on StartupOS's servers.
Choose a token type
The type sets what every trade costs and where that money goes. It is locked in when you press Create, and every token page shows it.
| Type | Fee per trade | You earn | Burn | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-Burn | 1% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.4% |
| Standard | 1% | 0.7% | None | 0.3% |
| Tax-Free | 0% | Nothing | None | None |
The shares are parts of the 1% fee. Each option on the form shows its live split, so check it there before you launch. Auto-Burn is selected by default, and the form only offers types that are open for new launches.
- Auto-Burn shrinks supply for good. On a bonding curve, the burn share is taken in tokens and destroyed on every trade. On an Instant token, and on a curve token once it graduates, it is collected in the pair currency to buy your token back from its pool and burn it.
- Standard has no burn and pays you the larger creator share.
- Tax-Free charges traders nothing, and nobody earns from trading it, you included. That holds for life, on the curve and after graduation.
Your share is paid in the pair currency, never in your own token. See Creator rewards.
Add a holder tax (Instant only)
An Instant token can charge an extra tax on every buy and sell, on top of the fee, to reward the people who hold it.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Rate | 0%, 1% or 2% |
| Destination | Holder rewards: all of the tax goes to holder rewards. Rewards and burn: half goes to holder rewards, half buys the token back and burns it. |
Holder rewards go 90% to eligible holders, who claim them on the site, and 10% to your token's weekly lottery. See Holder rewards and the weekly lottery.
- The tax is charged in the pair currency.
- It is fixed for the life of the token, so decide before you launch.
- Tax-Free tokens and bonding-curve tokens cannot carry one.
- If the rates are greyed out, the form tells you why.
Holder rewards, the weekly lottery and buyback and burn run on mainnet and on testnet.
Pick the pair currency
The pair currency is what your token trades against. ETH is the default. Where other pair currencies are open, you can also pick another token from the list, or paste a token's address.
- Your token's price, its fees and your earnings are all counted in it.
- It is fixed at launch.
- The form checks that a pasted token can be used before you can select it.
- A token nobody has vetted shows a note saying so. Read it before you choose.
Can buyers pay in ETH?
Most people hold ETH and nothing else. When your pair currency can be reached from ETH, the trade panel offers Pay with ETH on most markets, so buyers do not need to hold the pair token first. When it cannot, they will need the pair token before they can buy at all, and most of them will not have it. Paying for a trade shows how it works on each market.
The form tells you which you are choosing. If buyers will need the pair token, a note appears under your choice saying so, with the reason behind the (i) beside it. Nothing stops you launching anyway. It is worth knowing that you are choosing a much smaller audience.
ETH is always reachable from itself, so none of this applies to the default.
Dollar prices
Pair currencies on the launch list have a dollar value, so your token shows a market cap and a dollar price like any other.
A token you paste in yourself may not, until the team lists it. Until then your token's market cap, dollar price and dollar volume show a dash, and it sorts as unranked on any board ordered by market cap. The token still trades normally and its price in the pair currency is always shown. See Trading and pricing.
A bonding curve is sized in dollars, so it needs that dollar value. A curve launch against a pair currency with no dollar price is refused. An Instant launch does not need one.
Choose a launch mode
Standard launch takes you straight to your token page. Go live after launch opens your stream as soon as the token lists, so you can talk while it trades. See Live streams.
Before you press Create
- Check the live split shown on your token type.
- If you picked Tax-Free, be sure you are happy to earn nothing from trading, ever.
- Decide on a holder tax now. You cannot add one later.
- Read any note under your pair currency, including whether buyers will be able to pay in ETH.
- Keep some ETH for gas. See Getting ETH onto Robinhood Chain.
The first buy
After you press Create, a dialog offers to buy some of your own token in the same transaction that creates it, before anyone else can trade.
- You have no cap. The anti-sniping limits apply to every other wallet, never to you.
- On a bonding curve, you buy at the very start of the curve, at the opening market cap of about $4,660.
- On an Instant token, your buy is a real swap at the pool's opening price: about 0.98 ETH for the whole supply on an ETH pair, or about 1 whole unit of the pair token on any other pair.
- The amount starts at zero, and the field stays off until you tick I want to purchase my token as first buyer.
- Three presets fill in the price of 1%, 5% or 10% of the total supply, in your pair currency. Use them to see what a share of your token costs before you type an amount.
- If your pair currency is a token other than ETH, your wallet first asks you to approve spending it.
Skip it and the token still launches normally.
Protection at launch
Every launch, on either market, gets the same protection:
- The first 2 blocks after launch (about 24 seconds). Every wallet except the creator is capped at 5% of the supply bought and 5% held, counted per wallet.
- The launch block is open. Anyone can buy in the launch block itself, within that cap.
- The creator has no cap at all.
- After that, no limits. The caps end and never return.
Selling and wallet-to-wallet transfers are never restricted. See Trading and pricing.
After you confirm
- If you are not signed in yet, the app asks you to sign in. It is a free signature and sends no transaction.
- If you are making a first buy in a token other than ETH, your wallet asks you to approve spending it.
- Your wallet asks you to approve the launch.
- The token is created. An Instant token's pool opens in the same transaction.
- You land on your token's page. For a few seconds it may say the token is still loading. That is normal, and the page keeps checking.
Anyone can buy from the launch block on, within the anti-sniping cap, and on Standard and Auto-Burn you earn your share of every trade.
Restyling your token page through your AI agent is not available yet. See Customising your token page.
What stays fixed
- Name, ticker and supply. Supply is 1,000,000,000 and nothing can mint more.
- Market, type, fee split, holder tax and pair currency. All are locked in at launch.
- The curve's shape. The 79.31% sold on the curve and the 14.7x rise are the same for every curve launch. The starting reserve is set once, at launch, and none of it can be changed for your token once it exists.
- Where your earnings go. They always go to the creator address recorded at launch, on either market, and that cannot be changed.