Is It Possible to Participate in Pre-Sales Before CEX Listings?

Pre-sales, where investors purchase tokens at favorable prices prior to their listing on centralized exchanges (CEXs), can be a total goldmine. But for whom? Not, by and large, the ordinary retail investors who only get a seat at the table once the usual VC heavyweights have cleared their plates.

Whether it’s Andreessen Horowitz, Consensys, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures or some other resource-rich venture arm, these are names that dominate press releases announcing seed rounds. Notorious for scooping up tokens at discounts and dumping them for astronomical profit, their actions betray Web3’s promise of open finance.

While regular retail users would love to get a piece of the action, most lack the capital or connections to join pre-sales, meaning they face the prospect of paying inflated CEX prices when tokens hit general sale. It’s a rigged casino where the insiders always win.

So, the logical question to ask is, can one participate in pre-sales before the tokens arrive on CEXs? 

Coin Terminal is Levelling the Pre-Sale Playing Field

Web3 projects have raised a ton of capital this year – over $5.4 billion from January to June, in fact, a 43% YoY rise. Naturally, the usual roll-call of business angels, founders and VCs has been over-represented, leading rounds and stacking tokens at a fraction of the CEX prices – often with bonuses or vesting schedules baked in to amplify their returns.

It’s easy to see why this sort of oligopoly happens: the big dogs have the most money, the best connections. As such, they aren’t deterred by the barriers to entry erected by certain launchpads which gate access with steep staking requirements or balance thresholds.

Inevitably, a vicious cycle is fuelled: with VCs snagging the lion’s share of tokens in pre-sales, then flooding exchanges post-listing, retail buyers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. You might get to participate in a pre-sale now and then, but otherwise you have to take your shot on a CEX and hodl till your investment’s back in the green.

IDO launchpad Coin Terminal professes to be just as tired of this rigged system as retail investors. Consequently, it has ditched token-gating and staking entirely and thrown open its doors to the community, to whom it grants access to all kinds of promising launches.

Since launching in late 2023, Coin Terminal’s promise to uphold the decentralized ethos of crypto has found favor with regular users: in little over 18 months it has welcomed over 520,000 users and hosted 70+ oversubscribed rounds, helping projects like AIT Protocol ($AIT), StarHeroes ($STAR), and Inspect ($INSP) get off the ground. By adopting a come-one-come-all approach rather than relying on VC largesse, the launchpad has raised a staggering $75 million.

An IDO platform with no staking, lock-ups or indeed membership token, was a novel idea back in 2023 – and the same is true today: Coin Terminal remains the only launchpad operating at scale with this kind of model. To participate in a pre-sale, users need only connect their wallet and select the IDO that takes their interest. Once a sale concludes, they receive their allocation minus 25% deducted as a platform fee. 

One might suppose that the cost of such a model would be an indiscriminate series of launches. But Coin Terminal wants to do more than widen access to sales; it endeavors to ensure projects are actually worthy of listing. Many of its sales are also refundable, a model intended to protect users from underperforming tokens and establish confidence in the ecosystem.

The success of the platform so far proves that retail inclusion drives revenue – a victory for both everyday investors and projects who benefit from broader exposure and an incentivized community from day one.

Opening Web3’s Gates

If pre-sales are rigged to favor VCs and largely exclude ordinary investors, DeFi risks becoming a Trojan horse version of TradFi. The emergence of an alternative preserves the industry’s promise by bringing ground-floor prices within reach. By making fairness and transparency keystones of the system rather than lip-service paid to prop up DeFi’s image.

While the wealth of whales will ensure they remain a fixture of project launches, the empowerment of everyday users – where anyone with a wallet and a dream can join the game and share the spoils – must continue.