Thirteen. That is how many public token sales closed worldwide in May 2026, according to CryptoRank, the lowest monthly count since 2020.
Yet the projects that did raise money in 2026 raised more per sale than at any other point in this cycle. Public raises still happen. Weak ones get found out faster.
CryptoRank data published in June 2026 showed IEOs, ICOs and IDOs raised about $58 million in Q2 2026, an 85% drop from the roughly $390 million raised across 105 sales in Q1. Compare that with Q1 2025, the peak of the current cycle, when 429 public sales raised close to $849 million.
At the same time, the average disclosed raise climbed from $2.08 million in 2025 to $3.15 million per sale in 2026, and IDOs accounted for roughly 75% of all public token sales over the past year. Fewer projects are launching. The ones that launch well are taking a bigger share of the capital.
An IDO can still raise well in 2026. It needs more preparation than it did two years ago.
This guide skips the definitions and goes straight to what founders and marketers need for a 2026 launch: how to plan the raise, how to pick a launchpad, which recent examples are worth copying, and what to do in the 90 days after your token starts trading.
- Public token sales shrank sharply in 2026, but average raise sizes went up, so a credible plan matters more than launch volume.
- Pick a launchpad by its post-listing track record and allocation rules, then match it to the wallets you actually want holding your token.
- Most IDOs lose value after listing because of day-one supply, so keep the TGE float small and lock liquidity before trading opens.
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~75% of public token sales over the past year were IDOs (CryptoRank) |
$3.15M average disclosed raise per public sale in 2026, up from $2.08M in 2025 |
11.8% of 2025’s 533 public sales were trading above sale price at year end |
What changed for IDOs heading into 2026
The mechanics of an Initial DEX Offering are the same as they were in 2021. Tokens are sold on-chain and trading opens on a DEX at the token generation event. What changed is who controls access to buyers and how allocations get decided.
Capital is concentrating in fewer sales
CryptoRank’s June 2026 research calls 2025 and 2026 a “selective capital” phase. Launch counts fell while average tickets rose. A mid-sized raise with a thin story now competes for the same wallets as a handful of large, well-distributed sales, and it usually loses.
Exchanges moved upstream
In 2025 Binance began running TGE events through Binance Wallet. New tokens trade on-chain and on other venues before any Binance spot listing. Coinbase bought Echo, the onchain fundraising platform founded by trader Jordan Fish (Cobie), and in November 2025 opened public token sales to US retail buyers for the first time since 2018. Its first sale, Monad, drew $269 million from 85,820 participants.
Allocation now rewards history
MegaETH’s sale weighed each wallet’s onchain history and past engagement with the MegaETH and Ethereum communities, plus whether the buyer chose a lock-up. Coinbase tells buyers that flipping tokens soon after purchase could shrink their future allocations. Buyers are being scored now. So are projects.
Retail is pricing valuation into the decision
Monad’s sale priced the network at a $2.5 billion fully diluted value, and a Stakecito team member quoted by The Block called that too high. The Block reported the sale was only 45% subscribed six hours in, before it closed 1.43x oversubscribed. Your FDV is part of your marketing whether you like it or not.
Planning your IDO before you choose a launchpad
Most weak IDOs are decided in a spreadsheet weeks before the sale opens. Lock these decisions first, because every launchpad application and marketing asset will depend on them.
Set a raise you can defend
- Tie the hard cap to an 18-month budget with line items for audits, liquidity, listings, payroll and marketing.
- Work back from an FDV you can justify against comparable live tokens, then size the public tranche. Monad’s public sale covered 7.5% of initial supply.
- Publish the soft cap, hard cap, token price and vesting terms before the allowlist opens.
- Hold back a liquidity reserve, since the pool you seed at TGE sets your first market price.
Decide who should hold the token
A sale spread across 80,000 small wallets behaves very differently after listing from one filled by 800 large ones. Contribution caps are the simplest lever you have. Monad set a $100 minimum and a $100,000 maximum for standard participants, so allocations spread across more buyers.
Launch on the chain where your buyers already sit
Ethereum led public token sale funding in 2026 with $334 million, according to CryptoRank data reported by Crypto Briefing. Solana hosts the MetaDAO raise model, and BNB Chain plugs straight into Binance Wallet’s TGE flow. Choose the chain where your target wallets already hold stablecoins and plan cross-chain support after launch.
Settle the legal perimeter early
- In the EU, MiCA generally requires a crypto-asset white paper for public offers of tokens that are neither asset-referenced tokens nor e-money tokens.
- ESMA’s Q&A on white paper exemptions, updated in May 2026, notes that listing a token on a DEX in the EU could amount to an offer to the public.
- Decide which countries you will exclude and enforce that with KYC and geo-blocking at the launchpad level.
- Get a written token classification opinion before anyone drafts marketing copy.
Tokenomics that survive listing day
CryptoRank’s year-end count for 2025 is sobering. Of 533 public token sales, only 63 were trading above their sale price by late December. About 58% delivered 3x to 6x early on and then gave the gains back. The pressure usually comes from supply released in the first 90 days.
Control the TGE float
Count every token that can reach the market on day one: unlocked public allocations, liquidity pool tokens, airdrops, market-maker loans and any KOL or advisor tokens without a cliff. Then compare that number against realistic buy demand. Teams that track only the public sale percentage miss most of the float.
Vest every insider bucket
- Put cliffs on team, advisor, early investor and foundation tokens, followed by linear monthly unlocks.
- Publish the full unlock calendar in your docs and keep it current.
- Avoid stacking a large unlock in the same week as a major announcement or listing.
- Apply the same vesting logic to market-maker and partnership allocations.
Seed liquidity and lock it publicly
Thin pools turn small sells into big candles. Seed enough depth for the volume you expect and lock the LP tokens with a public, verifiable lock. MetaDAO bakes this into its model: according to Alea Research, 20% of both the raised USDC and the tokens go straight into liquidity pools when a raise completes.
Have the product live at TGE
Monad’s mainnet went live two days after its sale closed, with MetaMask, Phantom, Uniswap and Curve support on day one. The Block reported MON trading around 46% above its $0.025 sale price that afternoon after an early dip. Buyers hold tokens they can use.
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Is your tokenomics ready for listing day? Have your float and vesting plan reviewed before you apply to a launchpad. |
Choosing the right IDO launchpad in 2026
“Launchpad” now covers four very different products. Exchanges run some of them. Others are curated communities or contract-based systems with their own auction or governance rules. Start by deciding which rail fits your raise, then compare platforms inside it.
| Launch rail | Examples | How allocation works | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exchange-linked sales | Binance Wallet TGE, Coinbase Token Sales | Points thresholds (Binance Alpha Points) or exchange-set fills with anti-flip rules | Large raises needing broad retail reach |
| Curated onchain platforms | Sonar (Echo), Legion | Commitments weighted by onchain history, community engagement or lock-up choice | Projects with an existing, active community |
| Multi-chain IDO launchpads | DAO Maker, Polkastarter, Seedify, ChainGPT Pad | Tiers based on staking the platform token, often with lotteries for lower tiers | Smaller raises in gaming and AI niches |
| Mechanism-led platforms | MetaDAO, Fjord Foundry | Market-governed raises with treasury controls, or liquidity bootstrapping auctions for price discovery | Teams wanting open price discovery or investor protections |
Once you know your rail, run every shortlisted platform through the same checks.
Check what past sales did after listing
CryptoRank publishes current and all-time-high ROI by launchpad. Start there before you read any platform’s pitch deck. In its June 2026 research, Echo led the major platforms with an average ROI of 24.87x, with Gems at 5.66x and CoinList at 3.14x. A famous name with a weak run of recent listings is a warning sign.
Match the audience to your token
Look at who actually buys on each platform. Gaming communities, Bitcoin DeFi traders, Solana governance users and AI token speculators are different crowds. Read the platform’s recent sale pages and Telegram groups to see whether your narrative will land there.
Read the allocation rules line by line
When a sale is oversubscribed, the allocation method decides who ends up holding your token. Pro-rata fills reward large wallets. Reputation scoring rewards long-term users. Points systems reward exchange activity. Pick the method that produces the holder base you planned for.
Ask what happens after the sale
- Does the platform help with exchange introductions or market-maker setup?
- Are fees charged in stablecoins, tokens or both, and do token fees vest?
- What marketing obligations come with the slot, such as AMAs or quest campaigns?
- How are refunds handled if a soft cap is missed?
Successful IDO examples worth studying
Some of these ran as ICO-style public sales on curated platforms or exchange rails. The launch lessons transfer directly to an IDO, so they belong on any founder’s study list.
Monad on Coinbase: wide distribution
Monad sold 7.5 billion MON at $0.025 each between November 17 and 22, 2025. It raised $269 million against a $187.5 million allocation. Co-founder Keone Hon said the participant count, 85,820 buyers across more than 70 countries, mattered more than the dollar figure. That framing is worth borrowing.
MegaETH on Sonar: allocation by reputation
MegaETH capped its raise just under $50 million. Cointelegraph reported $450 million in commitments within hours, and The Defiant later counted more than $1 billion competing for allocation. Allocations factored in onchain history and community engagement, so the people rewarded were the people who had shown up for years.
Plasma: a full book is no price guarantee
Plasma sold 10% of its XPL supply on Sonar for $50 million at a $500 million valuation, and demand ran far above the cap. By the end of 2025, CryptoRank listed XPL at around 0.47x its sale price. A full book on sale day did not keep buyers holding.
Binance Wallet TGEs: the limits of oversubscription
Lorenzo Protocol’s April 2025 TGE on Binance Wallet drew 62,117 BNB and was oversubscribed 183 times. PumpBTC was oversubscribed 247 times weeks earlier, then fell about 60% after launch. Exchange reach brings buyers in the door. Product and float decide whether they stay.
MYX: the 2025 outlier
CryptoRank named MYX the most profitable public sale of 2025, with a peak return of 2,103x and a return still above 385x at year end. Outliers like this are why founders keep launching publicly, even in a thin market.
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“Oversubscription measures demand on sale day. Holders in month three are the number your token lives on.” The pattern behind 2025’s best and worst public sales |
A 12-week IDO launch plan
Timelines vary with audit scope and launchpad queues, but most well-run IDOs follow a sequence close to this one. Treat the weeks as a planning baseline and add buffer around the audit.
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Weeks 1-3 |
Structure the raise Finalize raise size, FDV, supply split, vesting and the legal opinion. Draft the white paper and MiCA disclosures if you will offer in the EU. |
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Weeks 4-6 |
Build, audit and apply Complete the token, vesting, sale and liquidity-lock contracts, send them for audit, and submit launchpad applications with your docs and audit timeline. |
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Weeks 7-9 |
Grow the allowlist Run testnet and quest campaigns with sybil filtering, host AMAs, brief KOLs and publish the tokenomics page and unlock calendar. |
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Weeks 10-11 |
Run the sale Open KYC, run the sale window, post live commitment updates and keep support staffed across time zones. |
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Week 12 |
TGE and liquidity Distribute tokens, seed and lock DEX liquidity, pin verified contract addresses and confirm the first exchange listings. |
Marketing the sale without empty hype
IDO marketing in 2026 has one job: put your token in front of wallets that will still be around after TGE. Reach is cheap. Qualified reach is the hard part.
Build the allowlist from real users
Testnet activity and verified community roles make better allowlist criteria than follow-and-retweet tasks. Filter for sybil wallets before the snapshot, since farmed wallets tend to sell on day one.
Pick KOLs by audience quality
Ask creators for wallet-linked engagement data or past campaign results. A smaller creator whose audience actually joins sales beats a large account with bot-heavy replies every time.
Publish docs that search and AI engines can quote
Buyers now ask Google and AI assistants about a project before committing. Give them clean answers: a tokenomics page with exact numbers, a dated unlock table, a plain-language FAQ and a sale terms page. Use the same figures on your website and your launchpad page so search engines and AI tools quote one consistent set of numbers.
Treat sale day as an operations event
- Pin the official contract address everywhere and repeat it often.
- Post scam warnings early. Before River’s token traded on Binance Wallet in September 2025, a fake River token on Solana had already done $7.72 million in volume.
- Share commitment updates on a fixed schedule.
- Keep moderators online in every time zone you market to.
The first 90 days after TGE
Your token’s reputation is set in its first three months of trading. Most of 2025’s public sales gave back their early gains in this window.
Report on the treasury
Each month, publish the treasury balance and what was spent. MetaDAO’s model releases founders a monthly budget from an onchain treasury, which gives buyers a public benchmark to compare other teams against.
Ship on the dates you announced
Roadmap slips after a sale read as broken promises. Announce fewer milestones and hit them.
Sequence exchange listings
Binance’s 2025 pattern of Binance Wallet TGE, then Binance Alpha, then a spot listing for some projects showed that staged access can soften day-one selling. Plan your CEX conversations before TGE so each new listing lands as fresh demand.
Keep the community staffed
Holders decide whether to stay in the weeks after distribution. Keep AMAs and builder updates on the calendar through the first unlock.
Bringing your IDO to market
The teams that raised well in a thin market had defensible valuations, controlled day-one supply, products people could use at launch and holders who were chosen with care.
If you are planning a raise, Blockchain App Factory works with founders across the full IDO cycle. Our team handles token and sale contract development, vesting and liquidity lock setup, smart contract audit coordination and tokenomics modeling, along with launchpad integration or a custom IDO launchpad build if you want your own platform. On the go-to-market side, our IDO marketing team runs allowlist campaigns, KOL outreach, community management and exchange listing support, so the people who join your sale are the ones who stick around after it.
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Planning to launch your token through an IDO in 2026? |
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to launch an IDO?
Most well-prepared projects need around 10 to 16 weeks from final tokenomics to TGE. Audit turnaround and launchpad approval queues are usually the longest steps.
Which IDO launchpad is best in 2026?
There is no single best option. Compare platforms on recent post-listing ROI, audience fit, fees and allocation rules. CryptoRank’s launchpad ROI tables are a good public starting point.
Is an IDO still a good way to raise funds after the 2026 slowdown?
It can be. Sale counts fell sharply, but average raise sizes rose, which means well-prepared projects with real products are still raising strong public rounds.
Do IDOs require KYC?
Most major launchpads now require KYC and geo-blocking. Projects offering tokens to the public in the EU also need to account for MiCA’s white paper rules.
What is the main reason IDO tokens drop after listing?
Day-one supply. When tokens unlocked at TGE outweigh real buy demand, price falls. Tight vesting and locked liquidity reduce that risk.
Vimal J is the Head of Sales at Blockchain App Factory, with 10+ years of experience in sales, client strategy, and Web3 business growth. He helps startups, enterprises, and project founders choose the right blockchain solutions for their goals, bringing a practical market perspective to topics like token development, crypto launches, and Web3 adoption.
Article Reviewed by:
Arun Kamala Santhanath
Marketing Head, Blockchain App Factory
