Depth comparison of 8 major mainstream Launchpads, who will be the king of versions in 2025?

As the cryptocurrency market enters 2025, the Web3 launch platform (Launchpad) ecosystem has evolved into a diverse landscape, with various platforms developing differentiated layouts around different types of projects, users, and financing models. From issuance platforms supported by centralized exchanges to decentralized IDO mechanisms, and new solutions like LBP (Liquidity Bootstrapping Auction), 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 DAO Maker, Seedify, ChainGPT Pad, Virtuals, CoinTerminal, Fjord Foundry, CoinList, and Binance Launchpad, covering their project profiles, issuance mechanisms, return performance, track positioning, and unique innovations.

DAO Maker: A Launchpad that Balances Retail-Friendly and VC-Style Screening

Platform Positioning and Vision

DAO Maker connects retail users with a VC-like project screening system through its innovative "Strong Holder Offering" (SHO) mechanism. Users are required to stake $DAO tokens and have a long-term holding record to qualify for allocation, emphasizing the concept of "Loyalty Staking," thereby aligning the long-term interests of investors and projects. Since 2019, DAO Maker has facilitated over 179 token offerings, raising approximately $107 million, with representative 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 (annual returns of up to 300--1500%) during the staking period, thereby extending the locking period of community funds. Its core vision is to create a retail-friendly Web3 launch platform with VC-level screening and continuous incentive mechanisms.

2025 Project Representation

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 football-themed blockchain fantasy sports platform that combines collectibles and prediction gameplay, aligned with the World Cup hotspot.
• Kayen Protocol: Provides data validation and modular security services, suitable for re-staking and systems.
• Fusio: An enterprise-level platform equipped with AI monitoring mechanisms, designed for enterprise validator operating 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 returns of the DAO Maker project were modest, with the average current ROI approximately 0.14× of the IDO price, and the highest historical ROI averaging 3.65×. Most projects saw their prices quickly decline after listing, although a few breakthrough results did appear. The platform alleviated the losses from price declines through a staking mining mechanism, allowing token holders to continue earning returns even when prices fell. 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 returns in the past (e.g., Orion Protocol achieved several times growth), and the current low ROI is more a reflection of the overall market environment rather than a defect in the platform's mechanism itself.

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 several months of mining activities, distributing the tokens sold as rewards to DAO stakers or liquidity providers. This "stake to earn" model creates demand and liquidity after the IDO.
• DAO Token Binding: Participants of DAO Maker must hold $DAO to participate, thereby fostering loyalty. The "DAO Power" system records user holding points to prevent rapid sell-offs.

These mechanisms strengthen the sustainability of IDOs while maintaining market enthusiasm, reflecting DAO Maker's dual positioning that combines 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), infrastructure (Kayen), and AI/business services (Fusio). Compared to chasing trends with "Meme-type platforms", DAO Maker leans more towards building a project ecosystem that possesses real value and return mechanisms. Its strategy is to create a "community-driven accelerator" that attracts entrepreneurs looking to balance retail traffic with long-term healthy development.

Seedify: Community-driven Next Generation Launchpad

Platform Positioning and Vision

Since 2021, Seedify ($SFUND) has been committed to promoting the incubation of quality projects in NFTs, gaming, AI, and other fields through a community consensus mechanism. To date, Seedify has facilitated the issuance of over 100 tokens, raising approximately $40 million to $55 million in total. The platform combines various advantages and employs a $SFUND staking tiered mechanism to ensure users' allocation rights, while introducing community reviews to replace closed private placement screenings. In 2025, Seedify continued its technological innovation by launching a permissionless bond curve issuance platform, a decentralized curation DAO, and an on-chain social allocation mechanism, becoming one of the leading Launchpads at the forefront of the technology stack.

2025 Representative Projects

• 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 approximately $300,000. The token is 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 token price performance is average.
• P33L (P33L): An AI satire Meme project, issued in April 2025 through a bond curve method, with a total valuation of $250,000, selling 28% of the supply and raising approximately $70,000, reflecting Seedify's strategy to support 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 are expected to have considerable heat when they launch in 2025, but generally experience price corrections afterward. This phenomenon has become the current norm for IDOs. Seedify aims to avoid severe sell pressure and promote long-term value by introducing bond curves and flexible unlocking mechanisms.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

• Smart Union Curve Issuance: The token price dynamically rises with purchasing demand, automatically generating $SFUND--project token LP pool after sold out, achieving liquidity upon launch, and incorporating safeguards against "Rug Pull" and "Sniping": a 24-hour refund window and progressive pricing prevent bots from snatching up tokens and protect buyer rights.
• Layered Access Mechanism (Staking + Social): In the early stages, access is prioritized for $SFUND stakers and users with high "social scores" (obtained through referrals, interactions similar to Kaito, and community activities), and later will be opened to the public, forming a gamified entry logic that encourages active contributors. This "social distribution layer" rewards community builders, not just whales.
• Investor-friendly unlocking/refund mechanism: Each project can choose a flexible vesting schedule, with Seedify offering instant unlocking or short-term linear unlocking (1-4 weeks) to balance trust and sales pressure. Additionally, each token issuance has a 24-hour refund window, allowing buyers to opt for a refund in uncertain situations. This mechanism is similar to the down-risk protection of the CoinTerminal model, providing users with an extra layer of confidence.
• 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 whitelists.
• $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 can benefit from the ecosystem it drives.

Track Focus and Strategic Positioning

Seedify starts with games and culture at its core and is gradually expanding into AI and other fields. Its recent project lineup (Stable Jack, Aiki, P33L) covers multiple sectors including yield, AI games, and Meme culture. The platform prides itself as a leader in the "Web3 culture and games" space, gradually embracing cutting-edge trends like on-chain AI and protocols. Seedify positions itself as a community-first alternative: more open than Binance, more engaging than CoinList, and more organized than Virtuals. By integrating joint curves and refund mechanisms, it aims to provide new project upside potential while enhancing investor protection.

Unique Strategy Summary

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

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 in-depth incubation with technical support (smart contract auditing, AI analysis) before projects go live. Participation requires holding or staking $CGPT tokens, which are supported by the 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 can receive customized guidance for AI, while $CGPT stakers can gain participation rights in token sales.

2025 Representative Projects

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

• Omnia Protocol (OMNIA): A privacy-focused blockchain access provider (RPC relay), crucial for AI data feeding. ATH ROI approximately 5 times.
• Arcade (ARC): An interoperable, NFT-based competitive gaming platform, heralding a new trend.
• Flash Protocol (FLASH): A utility token for ultra-fast transactions, equipped with AI predictive analytics capabilities.
• NextGem AI (GEMAI): An AI-driven cryptocurrency content discovery platform (an "alpha feed" platform). Issued through a whitelist method in April 2025.
• AdixAI (ADIX): An AI advertising optimization network. Uniquely, ADIX will be distributed to eligible $CGPT stakers through a "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)------provided 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 $10.2 million (around $290,000 each). Most of these are micro-cap, early-stage financings.