Depth Comparison of 8 Mainstream Launchpads, Who Will Be the Version King in 2025?

As the cryptocurrency market enters 2025, the Web3 Launchpad ecosystem has evolved into a diverse landscape, with various platforms developing differentiated strategies around different types of projects, users, and funding models. From issuance platforms supported by centralized exchanges to decentralized IDO mechanisms, and to new solutions like LBP (Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool), Launchpad has become the core vehicle for early investment and project initiation in the crypto world. This article provides an in-depth comparison of the eight major Launchpad platforms, including Binance Launchpad, DAO Maker, ChainGPT Pad, Virtuals, CoinTerminal, Fjord Foundry, CoinList, and Seedify, covering their project profiles, issuance mechanisms, return performance, niche positioning, and unique innovations.

DAO Maker: A Launchpad that Balances Retail Friendliness and VC-Style Selection

Platform Positioning and Vision

DAO Maker connects retail users with a VC-like project selection system through its innovative "Strong Holder Offering" (SHO) mechanism. Users must stake $DAO tokens and have a long-term holding record to qualify for allocation, emphasizing the concept of "loyalty staking," which aligns the long-term interests of investors and projects. Since 2019, DAO Maker has facilitated over 179 token offerings, raising approximately $107 million, with represented projects including My Neighbor Alice and XCAD. The platform has gradually expanded from one-time sales to an "accelerator ecosystem," with new features like DAO Farms and Vaults allowing users to continuously earn token rewards during the staking period (with annual yields of up to 300--1500%), thereby prolonging the community's fund lock-up period. Its core vision is to create a retail-friendly Web3 launch platform with VC-level selection and continuous incentive mechanisms.

2025 Project

DAO Maker has recently focused on projects with clear narratives and diverse types, including:

• SpeedThrone: An AAA racing project that integrates AI elements, supporting staking mining for 6 to 12 months.
• 0xFútbol: A blockchain fantasy sports platform themed around soccer, combining collectibles and predictive gameplay, aligning with the World Cup hotspot.
• Kayen Protocol: Provides DeFi data validation and modular security services, suitable for re-staking and DePIN systems.
• Fusio: An enterprise-level DePIN platform equipped with AI monitoring mechanisms, aimed at enterprise validator operation scenarios.

These cases show that DAO Maker is compatible with sports/fan economy and AI/infrastructure projects, covering a wide range of topics.

Investment Return Performance

In the first half of 2025, the overall earnings of the DAO Maker project were mediocre, with an average current ROI of about 0.14× the IDO price, and the highest historical ROI average being 3.65×. Most projects quickly retraced their prices after listing, although there were still a few breakthrough results. The platform mitigates the losses from price drops through a staking and mining mechanism, allowing token holders to continue earning even when prices fall. The SHO mechanism has somewhat suppressed selling behavior, but it is still difficult to fully hedge against the overall market weakness. It is worth noting that DAO Maker had better earnings in the past (e.g., Orion Protocol achieved several times growth); the current low ROI is more a reflection of the overall market environment rather than a flaw in the platform's mechanism.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

• Strong Holder Offering (SHO): Obtain allocation rights by staking $DAO tokens, rewarding long-term holders.
• Yield Mining/Vaults: New projects often come with months of mining activities, distributing the tokens sold as returns to DAO stakers or liquidity providers. This "staking to earn" model creates demand and liquidity after the IDO.
• DAO Token Binding: Participants in DAO Maker must hold $DAO to participate, thereby fostering loyalty. The "DAO Power" system records users' holding points to prevent rapid sell-offs.

These mechanisms enhance the sustainability of the post-IDO phase while maintaining market enthusiasm, reflecting DAO Maker's dual positioning of combining the breadth of retail investors with the depth of project review.

Track Focus and Strategic Positioning

DAO Maker focuses on emerging narratives and practical projects, with its 2025 project layout covering 2.0 (SpeedThrone), sports/fan interaction (0xFútbol), DeFi infrastructure (Kayen), and AI/business services (Fusio). Compared to chasing trends with "Meme-type platforms," DAO Maker is more inclined to build a project ecosystem that possesses real value and return mechanisms. Its strategy is to create a "community-driven accelerator" that attracts entrepreneurs seeking to balance retail traffic with long-term healthy development.

Seedify: The Community-Driven Next-Generation Launchpad

Platform Positioning and Vision

Since 2021, Seedify ($SFUND) has been committed to driving the incubation of high-quality projects in the fields of NFTs, gaming, AI, and DeFi through a community consensus mechanism. To date, Seedify has facilitated the issuance of over 100 tokens, raising approximately $40 million to $55 million. The platform combines the advantages of CEX and DeFi, adopting a layered mechanism for $SFUND staking to ensure user allocation rights, and introducing community reviews to replace closed private placement screenings. In 2025, Seedify continued its technological innovation, launching a permissionless bond curve issuance platform, a decentralized curation DAO, and an on-chain social allocation mechanism, becoming one of the most cutting-edge Launchpads in the tech stack.

2025 Representative Project

• Stable Jack (JACK): A fixed/leverage yield protocol deployed on Avalanche, completing its IDO in April 2025, with an FDV valuation of $20 million, raising about $300,000. The token will be fully unlocked after TGE, but the market response has been relatively weak.
• Aiki (AIKI): An AI × gaming prediction platform on the Solana chain, set to launch in May 2025, utilizing a $SFUND + public offering dual channel model, raising approximately $175,000. Early user participation is high, but the coin's price performance is average.
• P33L (P33L): An AI satire meme project, issued via a bond curve method in April 2025, with a total valuation of $250,000, selling 28% of the supply and raising approximately $70,000, reflecting Seedify's strategy of supporting cultural innovation projects.

Investment Return Performance

Despite the overall cooling of the market, the historical average highest ROI of the Seedify project remains around 8×. Several projects set to launch in 2025 show considerable initial enthusiasm, but generally experience price corrections afterwards. This phenomenon has become the current norm for IDOs. Seedify aims to avoid severe selling pressure and promote long-term value by introducing bond curves and flexible unlocking mechanisms.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

• Smart Joint Curve Issuance: The token price rises dynamically with purchasing demand, automatically generating $SFUND after selling out -- project token LP pool, ensuring liquidity at launch, and built-in safeguards against "Rug Pull" and "Sniping": a 24-hour refund window and progressive pricing to prevent bots from buying tokens and protect buyer rights.
• Layered Access Mechanism (Staking + Social): In the early stages, priority access will be granted to $SFUND stakers and users with a high "social score" (obtained through referrals, interactions similar to Kaito, and community activities), and later it will be opened to the public, forming a gamified entry logic that encourages active contributors. This "social allocation layer" rewards community builders, not just whales.
• Investor-friendly unlocking/refund mechanism: Each project can choose a flexible vesting schedule, and Seedify offers instant unlocking or short-term linear unlocking (1-4 weeks) to balance trust and sales pressure. In addition, each token issuance has a 24-hour refund window, allowing buyers to choose refunds in case of uncertainty. This mechanism is similar to the down-risk protection of the CoinTerminal model, providing users with additional confidence assurance.
• Decentralized Curator Program: A curator network composed of KOLs, VCs, guilds, and DAOs selects projects for the platform and can earn revenue sharing, allocation quotas, and community whitelist.
• $SFUND Incentive Flywheel: Each issuance activity injects new use cases for $SFUND. Staking Level → Token Allocation → Token Issuance → Liquidity Creation → Purchase Pressure and Token Destruction. As the issuance quantity increases, the intrinsic demand for $SFUND tokens also grows. Seedify's design ensures that its native token benefits from the ecosystem it drives.

Track Focus and Strategic Positioning

Seedify, centered around gaming and culture, is gradually expanding into the fields of AI and DeFi. Its recent project lineup (Stable Jack, Aiki, P33L) covers multiple sectors including DeFi yield, AI gaming, and Meme culture. The platform prides itself on being a leader in the "Web3 culture and gaming" space and is progressively embracing cutting-edge trends such as on-chain AI and DePIN protocols. Seedify positions itself as a community-first alternative: more open than CoinList, more engaging than Virtuals, and more organized. By integrating joint curves and refund mechanisms, it aims to enhance investor protection while providing new projects with upward potential.

Unique Strategy Summary

Seedify integrates multiple mechanisms to create an "open yet protected" issuance model. Its permissionless bond curve platform, scheduled for launch by the end of 2025, will allow any team to issue tokens autonomously, combining automatic liquidity with anti-sniping mechanisms, similar to the openness of CoinTerminal but with added protections. The curation DAO absorbs the "review spirit" of DAO Maker and enhances user engagement through social incentive mechanisms (such as Kaito or Ethos points), ultimately forming an integration of CoinTerminal's openness, Fjord's fairness mechanism, DAO Maker's interest binding, and community-oriented culture, heralding the prototype of a new generation Launchpad.

ChainGPT Pad: A Launchpad Focused on Artificial Intelligence

Platform Positioning and Vision

ChainGPT Pad is the preferred launchpad for AI-first Web3 startups. It is part of the ChainGPT ecosystem (known for its AI chatbot and developer tools) and undergoes deep incubation through technical support (smart contract audits, AI analysis) before projects go live. Participation requires holding or staking $CGPT tokens, which are supported by fees from the platform's AI products (a portion of user fees will be burned). The vision of ChainGPT Pad is to become the premier DEAI (Decentralized AI) issuance tool: any project launched on it will receive customized guidance for AI, while stakers of $CGPT will gain the right to participate in token sales.

2025 Representative Project

The 2025 project portfolio of ChainGPT Pad integrates AI infrastructure and some:

• Omnia Protocol (OMNIA): A privacy-focused blockchain access provider (RPC relay) that is crucial for AI data feeds. ATH ROI approximately 5 times.
• Arcade (ARC): An interoperable, NFT-based competitive gaming platform, heralding a new trend.
• Flash Protocol (FLASH): A DeFi utility token for ultra-fast DEX trading, featuring AI predictive analytics.
• NextGem AI (GEMAI): An AI-driven platform for discovering crypto content (an "alpha feed" platform). Issued via whitelist in April 2025.
• AdixAI (ADIX): An AI advertising optimization network. Uniquely, ADIX is distributed to eligible $CGPT stakers through the "Launchdrop" airdrop (rather than a sale) in May 2025.
• Matchain (MAT) & Blink Game AI (BLINK): Two Launchdrops in May 2025 ------ one zk-rollup chain (MAT) and one gamified AI battle game (BLINK) ------ offered for free to community members to promote adoption.

Investment Return Performance

ChainGPT Pad is very active, having conducted about 35 IDOs in the past 6 months, raising approximately 1020.