Depth Comparison of 8 Major Launchpads, Who Will Be the King of Versions in 2025?

As the crypto market enters 2025, the Web3 Launchpad ecosystem has evolved into a diversified 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 mainstream Launchpad platforms, including a certain exchange's Launchpad, DAO Maker, ChainGPT Pad, Virtuals, CoinTerminal, Fjord Foundry, CoinList, and Seedify, covering their project profiles, issuance mechanisms, return performances, 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" (SHO) mechanism. Users must stake $DAO tokens and have a long-term holding record to qualify for allocations, 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 during the staking period (with annualized yields of up to 300--1500%), 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 continuous incentive mechanisms.

2025 Representative Projects

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 to 12 months.
• 0xFútbol: A blockchain fantasy sports platform themed around soccer, combining collection and prediction gameplay, in line with the 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 AI monitoring mechanisms, 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 return of the DAO Maker project was mediocre, with an average current ROI of approximately 0.14× the IDO price, and the highest historical average ROI being 3.65×. Most projects experienced a rapid decline in price after listing, although there were still a few breakthrough results. The platform alleviated losses from price declines through a staking mining mechanism, allowing token holders to continue earning returns even if prices fell. The SHO mechanism somewhat suppressed selling behavior, but it has not yet been able to fully hedge against the overall market weakness. It is worth noting that DAO Maker's past returns were better (for example, 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 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 in DAO Maker must hold $DAO to participate, fostering loyalty. The "DAO Power" system records users' holding points to prevent quick sell-offs.

These mechanisms strengthen the sustainability of the post-IDO phase while maintaining market enthusiasm, and reflect DAO Maker's dual positioning that combines the breadth of retail investors and the depth of project review.

Track Focus and Strategic Positioning

DAO Maker focuses on emerging narratives and utility projects, with its 2025 project layout covering GameFi 2.0 (SpeedThrone), sports/fan interactions (0xFútbol), DeFi infrastructure (Kayen), and AI/business services (Fusio). Compared to chasing the trends of "Meme 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 who wish 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 dedicated to promoting high-quality project incubation in the fields of NFT, gaming, AI, and DeFi through a community consensus mechanism. As of now, Seedify has facilitated the issuance of over 100 tokens, raising approximately $40 million to $55 million in total. The platform combines the advantages of a certain trading platform and DeFi, adopting a layered mechanism for $SFUND staking to ensure user allocation rights, and introducing community reviews to replace closed private placement selection. In 2025, Seedify continues to innovate technologically, launching a permissionless bond curve issuance platform, a decentralized curation DAO, and an on-chain social allocation mechanism, becoming one of the most advanced 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 approximately $300,000. The token will be fully unlocked after TGE, but the market response has been weak.
• Aiki (AIKI): An AI×gaming prediction platform on the Solana chain, set to be released 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): 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 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 initial hype when they launch in 2025, but a general price correction follows. 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 dynamically rises with purchasing demand, and after selling out, $SFUND--the project token LP pool is automatically generated, achieving liquidity upon launch. It also includes safeguards against "Rug Pull" and "Sniping": a 24-hour refund window and progressive pricing to prevent bots from sniping tokens and protect buyers' rights.
• Layered Access Mechanism (Staking + Social): In the early stages, priority access is given to $SFUND stakers and users with high "social scores" (obtained through referrals, interactions similar to Kaito, and community activities), while 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 plan, 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 consisting of KOLs, VCs, guilds, and DAOs selects projects for the platform and can earn revenue shares, 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 → 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, with games and culture as its core starting point, is gradually expanding into the fields of AI and DeFi. Its recent project line (Stable Jack, Aiki, P33L) covers multiple sectors such as DeFi yields, AI gaming, and Meme culture. The platform prides itself as a leader in the "Web3 culture and gaming" space and is gradually embracing cutting-edge trends such as on-chain AI and DePIN protocols. Seedify positions itself as a community-first alternative: more open than certain trading platforms, more engaging than CoinList, and more orderly 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, scheduled for launch by the end of 2025, will allow any team to issue tokens independently, combining automatic liquidity with anti-sybil mechanisms, similar to CoinTerminal's openness but with additional protections. The Curated DAO incorporates DAO Maker's "review spirit" 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, signaling 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 (known for its AI chatbot and developer tools) and undergoes deep incubation with technical support (smart contract audits, 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 primary DEAI (Decentralized AI) issuance tool: any project launched 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 privacy-focused blockchain access provider (RPC relay), crucial 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 trading on certain DEXs, featuring AI predictive analysis capabilities.
• NextGem AI (GEMAI): An AI-driven crypto content discovery platform (an "alpha feed" platform). Issued via whitelist in April 2025.
• AdixAI (ADIX): An AI advertising optimization network. What is unique is that,