Token launches are critical event as they drive tremendous activity and generally decide the distribution of liquidity for the new asset going forward. Token launches tend to be extremely high volume events, which contributes to sustaining liquidity and orderflow going forward.
Assessing shortcomings
Unfortunately today Neutron and its ecosystem has not yet perfected token launches, as exemplified by the missed opportunities in TIA and DYM token launches. Through analyzing these failures, we’ve identified the following blockers:
- There is no-one dedicated to watching for upcoming launches and coordinating to bring these assets to Neutron,
- Relayers don’t spin up IBC channels to Neutron in block 1,
- Setting up pools on Astroport requires intervention from the Astroport team, to set decimals and other parameters,
- Providing the price scale during pool creation leads to having to arb prices before providing liquidity,
- Incentive distribution on Astroport is governance gated
- LPs and users are not accustomed to going to Astroport for new assets
Resolving the issues
Create a Token Launch Task Force
Placeholder name: Token Launch Task Force (TLTF)
The Task Force’s role would be to coordinate actors across the ecosystem to ensure a smooth launch and maximize the liquidity, volume and hype generated around these tokens and the Neutron ecosystem:
- Warn and coordinate with Relayers to ensure channels to Neutron are created on block 1
- Bring the new token to Neutron as soon as possible to determine the denomination
- Warn and coordinate with the Astroport team to ensure an appropriately configured pool is deployed on Astroport as rapidly as possible
- Optionally, provide a small amount of short-term incentives on the day of the launch to incentivize LPs to rush to Neutron
- Coordinate relevant partners to inform about the new token, liquidity pool and incentives on Twitter and other platforms
Given that the current state of affairs is LPs and users look first to other platforms for trading new assets, we propose to trial deploying some short-term incentives to attract first mover LPs to Neutron:
- $100-1,000 NTRN per pool to be distributed over 24 hours on the day of the launch on the NTRN and USDC pools for the new asset.
We propose to setup the TLTF as a multisig sub-DAO of LiquidSig, with very permissive security parameters to enable lightning fast ops, but very low funding to minimize exposure.
The TLTF would be composed of volunteers from the Hadron Labs team, ecosystem’s dApps such as Astroport and community members who follow token launches closely.
To assist the TLTF in its operations, the Astroport team will draft a playbook for how to list assets on Astroport. The Hadron Labs team will work with relayers and its own experience to add guidance for how to set up IBC channels with relayers, preparing comms, adding support for the token on the various explorers, wallets, etc.
To keep things simple but create a strong incentive for performance, I propose to reward community members (not members of the TLTF that belong to Hadron Labs or target dApps) as follows:
- $250 per launch in NTRN if, after 7 days, liquidity on Neutron > 50% of the top venue, and volume > 30% of the top venue
- $500 per launch NTRN if, after 7 days, the top liquidity and volume for the new asset is on Neutron
Make Astroport incentives contract permissionless
This migration is currently in progress and will significantly facilitate future launches:
$ASTRO incentives will remain controlled by Astroport governance, but LiquidSig and other third parties will be able to add incentives permissionlessly to the pools. The new incentives contract support up to 5 incentive denominations which is another improvement over the previous contracts, enabling easier joint incentivization campaigns.
Implement missing decimal queries to remove reliance on the Astroport team
Astroport currently requires configuring decimals for each new asset to avoid issues with different decimal values. This is because it’s not possible to query the decimal place for all denominations, because not all token types implement that query presently.
Hadron Labs is working with Astroport to eventually implement these queries, which, if approved by Neutron governance as part of an upgrade proposal, would enable the decimal place requirement to be removed, and assets to be listed without the intervention of the Astroport team.
PS: If you are enthusiastic about Neutron, an on-chain degen watching for new token launches on Twitter constantly and are looking to get more involved in Neutron or LiquidSig, reach out to us.
PPS: TLTF is not a great acronym. Gib me gud suggestions!