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

As the crypto market enters 2025, the Web3 launch platform (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 such as 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 8 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 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 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" to align the long-term interests of investors and projects. Since 2019, DAO Maker has facilitated over 179 token launches, 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 continuous incentive mechanisms.

2025 Representative Project

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

• SpeedThrone: An AAA racing GameFi 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, aligning with the World Cup hotspot.
• Kayen Protocol: Provides DeFi data validation and modular security services, applicable to 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 returns of the DAO Maker project were mediocre, with the average current ROI being approximately 0.14× the IDO price, and the highest historical ROI average being 3.65×. Most projects quickly saw their prices fall 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 when prices dropped. The SHO mechanism has somewhat suppressed selling behavior, but it has yet to fully hedge against the overall market weakness. It is noteworthy that DAO Maker had better returns in the past (such as Orion Protocol achieving several times growth); the current low ROI is more a reflection of the overall market environment rather than a defect in the platform's mechanism.

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 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 users' holding points to prevent quick sell-offs.

These mechanisms enhance the sustainability of the post-IDO phase 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 (SpeedThrone), sports/fan interaction (0xFútbol), DeFi infrastructure (Kayen), and AI/business services (Fusio). Compared to projects chasing trends, DAO Maker is more inclined to build a project ecosystem with real value and return mechanisms. Its strategy is to create a "community-driven accelerator" to attract entrepreneurs who seek 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 the incubation of high-quality projects in the fields of NFTs, 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 CEX and DeFi, using a $SFUND staking tiered mechanism to ensure user allocation rights, and introduces community reviews instead of closed private placement screenings. In 2025, Seedify continues 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 cutting-edge 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 about $300,000. The tokens will be fully unlocked after the TGE, but 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 coin price performance is average.
• P33L (P33L): An AI satire project, issued through 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 of supporting 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 hype during their initial launch in 2025, but generally, a price correction 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: Token prices dynamically rise with purchasing demand, and after selling out, automatically generates $SFUND -- project token LP pool, ensuring liquidity upon launch, with built-in protections against "Rug Pull" and "Sniping": a 24-hour refund window and progressive pricing to prevent bots from snatching tokens and protect buyer rights.
• Layered Access Mechanism (Staking + Social): In the early stages, priority access is granted to $SFUND stakers and users with high "social scores" (gained through referrals, interactions similar to Kaito, and community activities), while later stages will open to the public, creating 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. 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 downside risk protection of the CoinTerminal model, providing users with an extra layer of confidence.
• Decentralized Curator Program: A network of curators composed of KOLs, VCs, guilds, and DAOs that selects projects for the platform and can receive 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 Burn. 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, 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 games, and 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 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, planned to launch by the end of 2025, will allow any team to issue tokens independently, combining automatic liquidity and anti-sniping mechanisms, similar to CoinTerminal's openness but with added protections. The curation DAO incorporates DAO Maker's "review spirit" and enhances user engagement through social incentive mechanisms (such as Kaito or Ethos points), ultimately forming an integration of CoinTerminal's openness, Fjord's fairness mechanisms, DAO Maker's benefit binding, and a 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 (known for its AI chatbot and developer tools) and undergoes in-depth incubation through technical support (smart contract audits, AI analysis) before project launch. 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 can receive tailored guidance for AI, while stakers of $CGPT can gain access to participate in token sales.

2025 Representative Project

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

• Omnia Protocol (OMNIA): A privacy-focused blockchain access provider (RPC relay), essential for AI data feeds. ATH ROI approximately 5 times.
• Arcade (ARC): An interoperable, NFT-based competitive gaming platform that heralds a new trend in GameFi.
• Flash Protocol (FLASH): A DeFi utility token for ultra-fast DEX trading, equipped with AI predictive analytics.
• NextGem AI (GEMAI): An AI-driven cryptocurrency content discovery platform (an "alpha feed" platform). Issued via whitelist in April 2025.
• AdixAI (ADIX): An AI advertising optimization network. What makes it unique is that ADIX will be distributed to eligible $CGPT stakers through a "Launchdrop" airdrop (instead of a sale) in May 2025.
• Matchain (MAT) & Blink Game AI (BLINK): Two Launchdrops in May 2025 ------ a zk-rollup chain (MAT) and a gamified AI battle game (BLINK) ------ provided 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 dollars (around 290,000 each).