Launch a token

12 slots, FCFS, dynamic cost, one launch per wallet per week

The launch window opens at Mon 00:00 UTC every week and closes 48 hours later. During those 48 hours, twelve token slots fill on a first-come-first-served basis. Once the window shuts, the field is locked — you wait for the next season.

Get filtered or get funded ▼

What you’re committing to

Launching a token costs:

• A non-refundable launch cost that rises with each slot taken
• A refundable stake equal to the launch cost, held until Friday’s cut and returned if your token survives into the top 6

You launch directly into a real Uniswap V4 pool. As soon as your tx confirms, your token is tradable on the Arena and your HP starts updating. There is no draft state, no review, no delay.

You only get one launch per wallet per week (spec §4.6). This is a hard cap — the contract reverts a second attempt with LaunchCapReached. If you want to ship two ideas in a week, you need a second wallet and a different ticker.

The slot grid

The /launch page lays out twelve cards in a 4×3 grid. Each card is one of three states:

• Filled — a creator already claimed this slot. Card shows the token ticker, creator, current HP, and live status (SAFE / AT RISK / FINALIST / FILTERED).
• Next — the slot your launch will occupy if you submit now. The card displays Slot #N and the current cost in ETH.
• Open — slots that come after next. Greyed-out, showing only their projected cost.

The next slot pulses pink to draw your eye. As earlier slots fill, the next index advances and the cost on the form updates in real time.

Dynamic cost

Each slot is more expensive than the last:

launchCost = BASE_LAUNCH_COST × (1 + (slotIndex / MAX_LAUNCHES)²)

Where MAX_LAUNCHES = 12 and slotIndex starts at 0. Slot 1 is the base cost; slot 12 is approximately 1.84× base. The shape is quadratic — the curve is gentle for the first several slots and steepens toward the end.

Slot	Multiplier	Example (base = 0.05 ETH)
1	1.00×	0.050 ETH
6	1.25×	0.063 ETH
12	1.84×	0.092 ETH

The cost panel on the launch form shows the live total: launch cost + refundable stake. If a slot is claimed while you’re filling out the form, the cost ticks up before submit, and the contract refuses an under-payment with InsufficientPayment.

Refundable stake

When refundable stake is enabled (Sepolia + mainnet default), the contract holds an amount equal to the launch cost in escrow at launch time. At Friday’s cut:

• Survive into the top 6 → the stake is refunded to your creator wallet
• Get filtered (bottom 6) → the stake is forfeited to the protocol’s configured forfeitRecipient (treasury by default)

You can verify the stake mode on the launcher:

cast call $LAUNCHER 'refundableStakeEnabled()(bool)' --rpc-url $RPC

The stake is independent from the launch cost itself — surviving the cut gets your stake back, but the launch cost is gone either way.

The launch form

Field	Required	Notes
Name	yes	Display name on the Arena
Ticker	yes	1–10 chars, A–Z, 0–9; canonicalized before submit. Unique per season — the contract reverts on duplicates
Description	yes	Short pitch shown in the token detail panel
Image	yes	Logo. Pinned to IPFS by the launch flow
Website	no	Optional
X handle	no	Optional
Farcaster	no	Optional

Below the fields, a checkbox you must tick before the button enables:

“I understand most tokens get filtered ▼”

This isn’t a footer disclaimer. It’s the entry contract. See Risks.

The launch flow

1. Connect your wallet

   The form is hidden until a wallet is connected. The launcher reads your address to enforce the per-wallet cap before you spend gas.

2. Fill the form

   Name, ticker, description, image, optional socials. The cost panel updates live as earlier slots fill. The “I understand…” checkbox must be ticked.

3. Pin metadata

   On submit, the page POSTs your fields to /api/metadata, which pins a JSON blob to IPFS and returns a URI. This step takes a few seconds and runs before the wallet popup so a network failure here costs you no gas.

4. Confirm the transaction

   Wallet pops with launchToken(name, symbol, metadataURI) and msg.value = launchCost + refundableStake. The contract validates season phase, per-wallet cap, ticker uniqueness, and slot availability — any failure reverts with a typed error.

5. Land in the Arena

   On success, the page redirects to /?token=<your address> — home is the Arena, your token is selected, your HP is at zero, and the leaderboard starts ranking you on the next tick.

What happens after

Your token is tradable through Uniswap V4 the moment the launch transaction confirms. Going early gets you more pre-cut trading time which is the implicit reward for paying the slot-1 cost on a partially empty grid. Last-slot launchers still get a fair 48 hours of equal-footing trading between launch close (Wed 00:00) and the cut (Fri 00:00) — see Season cadence.

From here you’ll spend most of your time on the creator console — your per-token cockpit for HP, fee claims, and admin actions.

Next

Creator console

Watch HP, claim trading fees, update metadata, transfer admin.

Creator incentives

The 0.20% trading fee, the 2.5% champion bounty, the refundable stake — what creators actually earn.

Bag-lock

Opt-in time-lock on your own holdings. The trust signal vs. every other launchpad.

The filter

What it means to be filtered, and why filtered tokens keep trading.