Depth Comparison of 8 Major Launchpads, Who Will be the Version King in 2025?

As the cryptocurrency market enters 2025, the Web3 launch platform ecosystem has evolved into a diverse landscape, with various platforms developing differentiated strategies 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, Launchpad has become the core vehicle for early investment and project initiation in the crypto world. This article provides an in-depth comparison of 8 major Launchpad platforms, including DAO Maker, Seedify, ChainGPT Pad, Virtuals, CoinTerminal, Fjord Foundry, CoinList, and Binance Launchpad, covering their project overviews, issuance mechanisms, return performances, market positioning, and unique innovations.

DAO Maker: A Launchpad Balancing Retail-Friendly and VC-Style Selection

Platform Positioning and Vision

DAO Maker connects retail users with a VC-like project selection system through its original "Strong Holder Offering" mechanism. Users must stake $DAO tokens and have a long-term holding record to qualify for allocations, 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 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 during the staking period (with annual yields of up to 300-1500%), thereby extending the community's fund lock-up period. Its core vision is to create a retail-friendly Web3 launch platform with VC-level selection and ongoing incentive mechanisms.

2025 Project Representative

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

• SpeedThrone: An AAA-level racing GameFi project that integrates AI elements, supporting staking mining for 6-12 months.
• 0xFútbol: A blockchain fantasy sports platform themed around soccer, combining collection and prediction gameplay, closely aligned with World Cup trends.
• Kayen Protocol: Provides DeFi data verification and modular security services, suitable for re-staking and DePIN systems.
• Fusio: An enterprise-level DePIN platform equipped with an AI monitoring mechanism, designed for enterprise validator operation scenarios.

These cases show that DAO Maker is compatible with GameFi, 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 mediocre, with an average current ROI of about 0.14× the IDO price, and the highest historical average ROI being 3.65×. Most projects saw their prices quickly decline after listing, although there were still some breakthrough results. The platform mitigates losses from price drops through a staking mining mechanism, allowing token holders to continue earning returns even when prices fall. The SHO mechanism has somewhat suppressed selling behavior, but it has yet to fully hedge against the overall market weakness. It is worth noting that DAO Maker has historically performed better, and the current low ROI is more a reflection of the overall market environment rather than a flaw in the platform's mechanism itself.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

• Strong Holder Issuance: 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 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 users' holding points to prevent quick sell-offs.

These mechanisms not only maintain market enthusiasm but also strengthen the sustainability of the post-IDO phase, 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 GameFi 2.0, sports/fan interaction, DeFi infrastructure, and AI/business services. Compared to the "Meme-based platforms" that chase trends, DAO Maker is more inclined to build project ecosystems with real value and return mechanisms. Its strategy is to create a "community-driven accelerator" that attracts entrepreneurs who hope to balance retail traffic with long-term healthy development.

Seedify: The Community-Driven Next Generation Launchpad

Platform Positioning and Vision

Since 2021, Seedify has been committed to promoting the incubation of high-quality projects in the fields of NFT, gaming, AI, and DeFi through a community consensus mechanism. As of now, Seedify has facilitated over 100 token issuances, raising approximately $40-55 million in total. The platform combines the advantages of CEX and DeFi, adopting a $SFUND staking tier mechanism to guarantee user allocation rights, and introducing community reviews to replace closed private placement screenings. In 2025, Seedify continues its technological innovation, launching a permissionless bond curve issuance platform, a decentralized curatorial DAO, and an on-chain social allocation mechanism, becoming one of the leading Launchpads at the forefront of the technology stack.

2025 Representative Project

• Stable Jack: A fixed/leverage yield protocol deployed on Avalanche, completing its IDO in April 2025, with an FDV valuation of 20 million USD and raising approximately 300,000 USD. The token will be fully unlocked after TGE, but the market response has been relatively weak.
• 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: An AI satire-themed 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 to support culturally innovative 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 popularity during their initial listing in 2025, but there is generally a price correction that follows. This phenomenon has become the current norm for IDOs. Seedify aims to avoid severe selling pressure and promote long-term value by introducing a bond curve and a flexible unlocking mechanism.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

• Smart Joint Curve Issuance: The token price dynamically rises with purchasing demand, and after selling out, automatically generates the $SFUND-project token LP pool, achieving liquidity upon launch, and includes safeguards against "Rug Pull" and "Sniping": a 24-hour refund window and progressive pricing to prevent bots from purchasing tokens and protect buyers' rights.
• Layered Access Mechanism (Staking + Social): Initially open to $SFUND stakers and users with high "social scores", and later open to the public, creating a gamified entry logic to encourage 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, 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 opt for a refund in uncertain situations. This mechanism provides users with an additional layer of confidence.
• Decentralized Curator Program: A curator network composed of KOLs, VCs, guilds, and DAOs to select projects for the platform, and can receive revenue sharing, allocation quotas, and community white lists.
• $SFUND Incentive Flywheel: Each issuance activity injects new use cases for $SFUND. Staking level → Token allocation → Token issuance → Liquidity creation → Buying pressure and token burn. 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 is gradually expanding into the fields of AI and DeFi, with games and culture as its core starting points. Its recent project line covers multiple sectors, including DeFi yields, AI gaming, and Meme culture. The platform claims to be 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 Binance, more fun than CoinList, and more organized than Virtuals. By integrating joint curves and refund mechanisms, it aims to enhance investor protection while providing new projects with upward potential.

Unique Strategy Summary

Seedify creates an "open yet protected" issuance model by integrating multiple mechanisms. Its permissionless bond curve platform, set to launch by the end of 2025, will allow any team to issue tokens independently, combining automatic liquidity with anti-sniping mechanisms, similar to the openness of CoinTerminal, but with added protection. The curatorial DAO incorporates the "review spirit" of DAO Maker and enhances user engagement through social incentive mechanisms, ultimately forming a hybrid of CoinTerminal's openness, Fjord's fairness mechanism, DAO Maker's interest binding, and community-oriented culture, heralding the emergence of a new 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 and undergoes depth incubation through technical support before project launch. Participation requires holding or staking $CGPT tokens, which are supported by the fees of the platform's AI products. The vision of ChainGPT Pad is to become the primary DEAI 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 GameFi:

• Omnia Protocol: A blockchain access provider focused on privacy, crucial for AI data feeds. ATH ROI approximately 5 times.
• Arcade: An interoperable, NFT-based competitive gaming platform, heralding a new trend in GameFi.
• Flash Protocol: A DeFi utility token for ultra-fast DEX trading, equipped with AI predictive analytics.
• NextGem AI: An AI-driven cryptocurrency content discovery platform. Issued via whitelist in April 2025.
• AdixAI: An AI advertising optimization network. Uniquely, ADIX will be distributed to eligible $CGPT stakers through a "Launchdrop" airdrop in May 2025.
• Matchain & Blink Game AI: Two Launchdrops in May 2025 - a zk-rollup chain and a gamified AI battle game - are 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 $10.2 million (about $290,000 each). Most of these are micro-cap, early-stage financings. At the highest price, the recently issued projects have an average ATH ROI of about 7.6 times. Some projects issued on ChainGPT at the beginning of 2023 achieved returns of over 40 times, but the market in 2025 has cooled down. Nowadays, the average ROI is only about 0.36 times. In other words, the high initial doubling was quickly followed by a decline. Nevertheless, ChainGPT Pad continues to produce some multiple return projects—several recent IDOs soared "well over 20 times" before the pullback. Overall, ROI is highly volatile, but occasionally performs remarkably, reflecting its focus on emerging AI projects.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

ChainGPT Pad combines traditional IDO with a novel distribution method.