2025 Mainstream Launchpad Platform Depth Comparison: Who is the Version King?

As the crypto market enters 2025, the Web3 launch platform ecosystem has evolved into a diverse landscape. From issuance platforms supported by centralized exchanges to decentralized IDO mechanisms and new solutions like LBP, Launchpad has become a core vehicle for early investment and project initiation in the crypto world. This article deeply compares eight major mainstream Launchpad platforms, exploring their project profiles, issuance mechanisms, return performance, track positioning, and unique innovations.

DAO Maker: A Launchpad Balancing 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" mechanism (SHO). Users must stake $DAO tokens and have a long-term holding record to qualify for allocations, emphasizing the "Loyalty Staking" concept to align the long-term interests of investors and projects. Since 2019, DAO Maker has facilitated over 179 token offerings, raising approximately $107 million in total. The platform has gradually expanded from one-off sales to an "Accelerator Ecosystem," with new features such as DAO Farms and Vaults allowing users to continuously earn token rewards during the staking period, thus extending the community's capital lock-up time. Its core vision is to create a retail-friendly Web3 launch platform with VC-level selection and ongoing incentive mechanisms.

2025 representative project

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

• SpeedThrone: An AAA racing GameFi project that integrates AI elements, supporting staking mining for 6-12 months.
• 0xFútbol: A football-themed blockchain fantasy sports platform that combines collectibles and predictive gameplay.
• Kayen Protocol: Provides DeFi data verification and modular security services, suitable for re-staking and DePIN systems.
• Fusio: Enterprise-level DePIN platform equipped with AI monitoring mechanisms, aimed at 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 the average current ROI around 0.14× of the IDO price, and the highest historical ROI average being 3.65×. Most projects saw their prices quickly drop after listing, although there were still a few breakthrough results. The platform mitigated the losses from price declines through a staking mining mechanism, allowing token holders to continue earning even when prices fall. The SHO mechanism has somewhat suppressed selling behavior, but it still struggles to fully hedge against the overall weakness of the market. It is worth noting that DAO Maker had better returns in the past, and 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 holders issue (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 sold tokens as rewards to DAO stakers or liquidity providers. This "staking 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 GameFi 2.0, sports/fan interaction, DeFi infrastructure, and AI/business services. 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" to attract entrepreneurs who hope to balance retail traffic with long-term healthy development.

Seedify: Community-Driven Next Generation Launchpad

platform positioning and vision

Since 2021, Seedify has been committed to promoting the incubation of quality projects in the fields of NFT, 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 USD in total. The platform combines the advantages of CEX and DeFi, using a $SFUND staking tiered mechanism to ensure user allocation rights, and introducing community review to replace the closed private placement screening. In 2025, Seedify continues 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 forefront Launchpads in the technology 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 approximately $300,000. Tokens are fully unlocked after TGE, but market response is 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 price performance is average.
• P33L(P33L): AI satire Meme project, issued through a bond curve method in April 2025, with a total valuation of $250,000, selling 28% of the supply, raising approximately $70,000, reflecting Seedify's strategy to support cultural innovation projects.

Investment Return Performance

Despite the overall cooling of the market, Seedify project’s historical average highest ROI remains around 8×. In 2025, several projects are expected to have considerable initial heat upon launch, but generally experience price corrections afterwards. This phenomenon has become the current norm for IDOs. Seedify aims to avoid severe sell 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 rises dynamically with purchase demand, automatically generating the $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 to prevent bots from snatching tokens and ensure buyer rights.
• Layered access mechanism ( staking + social ): In the early stages, it is prioritized for $SFUND stakers and users with high "social scores", and later it will be open 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, 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 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 whitelists.
• $SFUND Incentive Flywheel: Each issuance activity injects new use cases for $SFUND. Staking Level → Token Distribution → Token Issuance → Liquidity Creation → Buying 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 is gradually expanding from a core starting point of games and culture into the fields of AI and DeFi. Its recent project lines cover multiple sectors such as DeFi yields, AI games, and Meme culture. The platform prides itself as a "leader in the Web3 culture and gaming" space and is progressively embracing cutting-edge trends like on-chain AI and DePIN protocols. Seedify positions itself as a community-first alternative: more open than Binance, more interesting than CoinList, and more orderly than Virtuals. By integrating joint curves and refund mechanisms, it aims to increase investor protection while providing potential upside for new projects.

Unique Strategy Summary

Seedify integrates multiple mechanisms to create an "open yet protected" issuance model. 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 additional protections. The curated DAO incorporates the "review spirit" of DAO Maker and enhances user engagement through social incentive mechanisms, ultimately forming an integration 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 the project goes live. Participation requires holding or staking $CGPT tokens, which are supported by the fees from the platform's AI products. The vision of ChainGPT Pad is to become the primary DEAI issuance tool: any project issued on it will receive customized guidance for AI, while stakers of $CGPT will gain access to participate in token sales.

2025 Representative Projects

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

• Omnia Protocol (OMNIA): A blockchain access provider focused on privacy, essential for AI data feeds. ATH ROI approximately 5 times.
• Arcade (ARC): An interoperable, NFT-based competitive gaming platform, heralding a new trend in GameFi.
• Flash Protocol (FLASH): A DeFi utility token for ultra-fast DEX trading, equipped with AI predictive analysis features.
• NextGem AI (GEMAI): AI-driven cryptocurrency content discovery platform. Issued through whitelist in April 2025.
• AdixAI (ADIX): An AI advertising optimization network. Uniquely, ADIX is distributed to eligible $CGPT stakers through the "Launchdrop" airdrop.
• Matchain (MAT) & Blink Game AI (BLINK): Two Launchdrops in May 2025 - a zk-rollup chain and a gamified AI battle game - 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 a total of approximately $10.2 million. At the highest price, the average ATH ROI of recently issued projects is 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 already cooled down. Today, the average ROI is only about 0.36 times. In other words, the high initial doubling was closely followed by a decline. Nevertheless, ChainGPT Pad continues to produce some projects with multiple returns - a few recent IDOs soared 'well over 20 times' before retreating. Overall, the ROI is highly volatile, but occasionally performs astonishingly, reflecting its focus on emerging AI projects.

Mechanism Innovation Highlights

ChainGPT Pad combines traditional IDOs with innovative distribution methods:

• $CGPT Staking Participation: Only holders of $CGPT