Last week we announced ThalaSwap, our in-house AMM focused on becoming Aptos’ liquidity hub. ThalaSwap is built around a flexible AMM architecture, enhancing yield, improving capital efficiency, and providing deeper integrations for Thala’s MOD stablecoin.

Today we want to introduce ThalaLaunch, a decentralized launchpad allowing projects seeking early-stage liquidity and enhanced token distribution a place to kickstart their communities.

How ThalaLaunch Works

Built on top of ThalaSwap, ThalaLaunch leverages a special pool type called Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools (LBPs). LBPs are a pool type that automatically changes the weights of pooled assets to produce more equitable distribution than simply creating a liquidity pool at an arbitrary price point.

Here’s a quick introduction. In an LBP, there are two assets: the quote asset (token “A”), which has a decreasing pool weight, and a distributed asset (token “B”), which has an increasing pool weight. The Token B price (so relative to Token A) is generally set higher to disincentivize market makers who have more efficient hardware and network infrastructure, as well as bots from buying much of the pool liquidity at the start of the LBP.

In most cases, unless there are considerable purchases of token “B”, the relative value of token “B” to token “A” will drop at the start. Participants can buy and sell the token freely — as long as the LBP is live — so organic price discovery can occur.

Why LBPs?

Liquidity bootstrapping pools are an effective mechanism for protocols to diversify their treasuries into reserve assets. Initial pool weight adjustments lead to steeper relative price changes than later pool weight adjustments.

LBPs are often seen as preferential to other launch mechanisms for the following reasons:

• Equitable participation: At the start of distribution, the price trajectory is downward sloping. This disincentivizes bots from taking up significant share of the pool at the beginning. Instead, all users have equal opportunity to enter the LBP depending on the price action.

• Increased distribution: LBPs are open to all users, without hidden mechanisms or whitelist processes. Without limitations or hard caps on participation, this distribution mechanism ensures increased participation and more varied distribution of token holders from the token-generation event (TGE).

• Sustainable price discovery: Without fixed valuations, protocols can gauge the fair market value of their token and facilitate greater price stability post TGE. A more sustainable price discovery ensures a healthier community-base and governance participation.

• Low Barrier of Entry: With other launch mechanisms like a lottery or “hold x token for whitelist,” an LBP allows users to diversify their holdings into project governance tokens with any arbitrary value, whether low or high. This allows these users to still get involved even with less skin in the game

More Launch Mechanisms to Come

An LBP, while popular, is not the only way for teams to bootstrap token distribution and community activity. ThalaLaunch has an extensive roadmap that will allow teams even more flexibility in bringing their projects to market. Some ideas that are being fleshed out and that may reach distribution include:

• Batch Auctions: Batch auctions are a different type of fair distribution mechanism that allows all participants to diversify their tokens into a newly-launched governance token at the same valuation. Batch auction are also demand based like LBPs, though settle differently to allow more equitable participation.

• Randomized Distribution: Another distribution that is “fair” but may breed more competitive behavior is a randomized, ticket-based distribution, whereby users can receive tickets for participating in a community prior to token distribution.

• Airdrop Tools: In line with Thala’s focus on building open source tooling for fellow Move developers, we plan on building tools allowing communities to airdrop tokens to their communities based on on-chain parameters.

There’s ultimately considerable design space in how protocols can bootstrap a community while maximizing participation in their governance structures. Though starting with LBPs, ThalaLaunch will eventually enable fellow Move-based projects to maximize reach bootstrapping as the Aptos DeFi and NFT ecosystem flourishes.

For protocols interested in using ThalaLaunch for a curated token offering, please contact business@thalalabs.xyz.

Stay tuned as we release more information over the coming days on our launch plan, $THL tokenomics, roadmap, and more!

Thala is a decentralized finance protocol powered by the Move language, enabling seamless borrowing of a decentralized, over-collateralized stablecoin in Move Dollar and capital-efficient liquidity provisioning via a rebalancing AMM on the Aptos blockchain.

Website: http://thala.fi/

Discord: https://discord.gg/thala

Twitter: http://twitter.com/thalalabs

Documentation: https://docs.thala.fi

Disclaimer

This article by Thala Labs and/or its affiliates (“we”, “us” and “our”) is for information purposes only. We do not provide tax, legal, insurance or investment advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, sell or issue or subscribe for, or a recommendation for any security, investment, cryptocurrency, token or other services, product or commodity by us or any third party. You alone are solely responsible for determining whether any purchase, sale, investment, security or strategy, or any other product or service, is appropriate or suitable for you based on your personal objectives and personal and financial situation and for evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of the information in this article before making any decisions based on such information or other content. You should consult a lawyer and/or tax professional regarding your specific legal and/or tax situation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Therefore, you should not assume that the future performance of any specific investment, cryptocurrency, token, commodity or strategy will be profitable or equal to corresponding past performance levels. Inherent in any such transaction is the potential for loss. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any transaction is suitable for a particular person. By accessing this article, you acknowledge and agree to all of the foregoing and that you bear responsibility for your own research, due diligence and transaction decisions. You also agree that we, our affiliates and our respective directors, officers, employees, consultants, shareholders, members, representatives, advisors and agents will not be liable for any decision made or action taken by you and others based on this article, news, information, opinion, or any other material published, discussed or disseminated by us.

This article contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information (referred to collectively as “forward-looking statements”). Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: “anticipate”, “intend”, “plan”, “goal”, “seek”, “believe”, “predict”, “project”, “estimate”, “expect”, “strategy”, “future”, “likely”, “may”, “should”, ”would”, “will”, and similar terms and phrases and the negatives of such expressions, including references to assumptions. Examples of forward-looking statements in this article include, among others, statements we make regarding our future plans, expectations and objectives.

Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the following: reliance on blockchain technology and blockchain technology service providers; digital asset transactions being irrevocable and losses occurring from such transactions; our use and reliance on proprietary data and intellectual property in its business; potential misuses of digital assets and malicious actors in the digital asset industry; digital assets potentially being subject to hold periods; developments and changes in laws and regulations; and disruptions to our technology network including computer systems, software and cloud data, or other disruptions of our operating systems, structures or equipment. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive.

Any forward-looking statement made by us in this article is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Last week we announced ThalaSwap, our in-house AMM focused on becoming Aptos’ liquidity hub. ThalaSwap is built around a flexible AMM architecture, enhancing yield, improving capital efficiency, and providing deeper integrations for Thala’s MOD stablecoin.

Today we want to introduce ThalaLaunch, a decentralized launchpad allowing projects seeking early-stage liquidity and enhanced token distribution a place to kickstart their communities.

How ThalaLaunch Works

Built on top of ThalaSwap, ThalaLaunch leverages a special pool type called Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools (LBPs). LBPs are a pool type that automatically changes the weights of pooled assets to produce more equitable distribution than simply creating a liquidity pool at an arbitrary price point.

Here’s a quick introduction. In an LBP, there are two assets: the quote asset (token “A”), which has a decreasing pool weight, and a distributed asset (token “B”), which has an increasing pool weight. The Token B price (so relative to Token A) is generally set higher to disincentivize market makers who have more efficient hardware and network infrastructure, as well as bots from buying much of the pool liquidity at the start of the LBP.

In most cases, unless there are considerable purchases of token “B”, the relative value of token “B” to token “A” will drop at the start. Participants can buy and sell the token freely — as long as the LBP is live — so organic price discovery can occur.

Why LBPs?

Liquidity bootstrapping pools are an effective mechanism for protocols to diversify their treasuries into reserve assets. Initial pool weight adjustments lead to steeper relative price changes than later pool weight adjustments.

LBPs are often seen as preferential to other launch mechanisms for the following reasons:

• Equitable participation: At the start of distribution, the price trajectory is downward sloping. This disincentivizes bots from taking up significant share of the pool at the beginning. Instead, all users have equal opportunity to enter the LBP depending on the price action.

• Increased distribution: LBPs are open to all users, without hidden mechanisms or whitelist processes. Without limitations or hard caps on participation, this distribution mechanism ensures increased participation and more varied distribution of token holders from the token-generation event (TGE).

• Sustainable price discovery: Without fixed valuations, protocols can gauge the fair market value of their token and facilitate greater price stability post TGE. A more sustainable price discovery ensures a healthier community-base and governance participation.

• Low Barrier of Entry: With other launch mechanisms like a lottery or “hold x token for whitelist,” an LBP allows users to diversify their holdings into project governance tokens with any arbitrary value, whether low or high. This allows these users to still get involved even with less skin in the game

More Launch Mechanisms to Come

An LBP, while popular, is not the only way for teams to bootstrap token distribution and community activity. ThalaLaunch has an extensive roadmap that will allow teams even more flexibility in bringing their projects to market. Some ideas that are being fleshed out and that may reach distribution include:

• Batch Auctions: Batch auctions are a different type of fair distribution mechanism that allows all participants to diversify their tokens into a newly-launched governance token at the same valuation. Batch auction are also demand based like LBPs, though settle differently to allow more equitable participation.

• Randomized Distribution: Another distribution that is “fair” but may breed more competitive behavior is a randomized, ticket-based distribution, whereby users can receive tickets for participating in a community prior to token distribution.

• Airdrop Tools: In line with Thala’s focus on building open source tooling for fellow Move developers, we plan on building tools allowing communities to airdrop tokens to their communities based on on-chain parameters.

There’s ultimately considerable design space in how protocols can bootstrap a community while maximizing participation in their governance structures. Though starting with LBPs, ThalaLaunch will eventually enable fellow Move-based projects to maximize reach bootstrapping as the Aptos DeFi and NFT ecosystem flourishes.

For protocols interested in using ThalaLaunch for a curated token offering, please contact business@thalalabs.xyz.

Stay tuned as we release more information over the coming days on our launch plan, $THL tokenomics, roadmap, and more!

Thala is a decentralized finance protocol powered by the Move language, enabling seamless borrowing of a decentralized, over-collateralized stablecoin in Move Dollar and capital-efficient liquidity provisioning via a rebalancing AMM on the Aptos blockchain.

Website: http://thala.fi/

Discord: https://discord.gg/thala

Twitter: http://twitter.com/thalalabs

Documentation: https://docs.thala.fi

Disclaimer

This article by Thala Labs and/or its affiliates (“we”, “us” and “our”) is for information purposes only. We do not provide tax, legal, insurance or investment advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, sell or issue or subscribe for, or a recommendation for any security, investment, cryptocurrency, token or other services, product or commodity by us or any third party. You alone are solely responsible for determining whether any purchase, sale, investment, security or strategy, or any other product or service, is appropriate or suitable for you based on your personal objectives and personal and financial situation and for evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of the information in this article before making any decisions based on such information or other content. You should consult a lawyer and/or tax professional regarding your specific legal and/or tax situation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Therefore, you should not assume that the future performance of any specific investment, cryptocurrency, token, commodity or strategy will be profitable or equal to corresponding past performance levels. Inherent in any such transaction is the potential for loss. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any transaction is suitable for a particular person. By accessing this article, you acknowledge and agree to all of the foregoing and that you bear responsibility for your own research, due diligence and transaction decisions. You also agree that we, our affiliates and our respective directors, officers, employees, consultants, shareholders, members, representatives, advisors and agents will not be liable for any decision made or action taken by you and others based on this article, news, information, opinion, or any other material published, discussed or disseminated by us.

This article contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information (referred to collectively as “forward-looking statements”). Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: “anticipate”, “intend”, “plan”, “goal”, “seek”, “believe”, “predict”, “project”, “estimate”, “expect”, “strategy”, “future”, “likely”, “may”, “should”, ”would”, “will”, and similar terms and phrases and the negatives of such expressions, including references to assumptions. Examples of forward-looking statements in this article include, among others, statements we make regarding our future plans, expectations and objectives.

Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the following: reliance on blockchain technology and blockchain technology service providers; digital asset transactions being irrevocable and losses occurring from such transactions; our use and reliance on proprietary data and intellectual property in its business; potential misuses of digital assets and malicious actors in the digital asset industry; digital assets potentially being subject to hold periods; developments and changes in laws and regulations; and disruptions to our technology network including computer systems, software and cloud data, or other disruptions of our operating systems, structures or equipment. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive.

Any forward-looking statement made by us in this article is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.