CoinMarketCap takes another dive into a project that aims to make participating in token sales easier for everyone.
The cryptocurrency landscape is brimming with opportunity, with promising new projects seemingly launching left, right and center. But despite this, casual investors typically have little to no access to these projects during their early funding rounds, and are usually relegated to buying their tokens on public exchange platforms — typically at massive markups compared to early-stage investors.
KickPad is a project that looks to change this by opening access to early-stage investments through a secure IDO launchpad.
What Is KickPad (KPAD)?
Launched in March 2021, KickPad is a platform built to help incubate and launch projects primarily building on Binance Smart Chain.
It is designed to address a number of growing challenges in the DeFi fundraising space, such as so-called “rug pulls” — which generally occur when a dubious project pulls its token liquidity from the decentralized exchange (e.g. Uniswap or PancakeSwap), thereby rendering the token essentially worthless due to a lack of liquidity.
The platform places a major focus on transparency, accessibility and safety, giving regular investors the opportunity to gain exposure to ambitious new DeFi projects with minimal risk. Its emphasis on security enables it to host token sales for anonymous projects while ensuring that investors cannot be scammed.
Deals are made accessible to holders of the platform’s native utility token — KPAD. To participate in the deal flow, users need to either stake or simply hold KPAD. This choice determines whether they can participate in the private or public round of each project's initial DEX offering (IDO).
As a project launchpad, KickPad makes use of a concept known as a decentralized swap to ensure that investors are guaranteed to receive their tokens at the displayed price.
The first IDO held on the KickPad platform was for its own native token (KPAD). The platform also helps partnered projects pre-and-post launch, helping with marketing, strategy and more to help them succeed.
How Does KickPad Work?
The KickPad platform can be broadly divided into two connected ecosystems; the IDO platform and the pre-sale platform.
The IDO platform, known as KickPad, is used for participating in token offerings from a variety of screened and vetted projects. Users will need to stake their KPAD tokens to participate in these launches. Whereas the pre-sale platform, known as KickDEX, allows projects to easily host their own pre-sales with smart-contract enforced liquidity locking.
Both platforms are highly transparent, ensuring investors can see exactly how much liquidity is being locked and how long it’s locked for, as well as how the sale is progressing. Once a sale is complete, investors will be able to withdraw their tokens from the platform. All locked liquidity is automatically transferred to PancakeSwap via a proprietary smart contract.
As of April 2021, KickPad is in its initial build, known as V1. In V1, users are required to stake a minimum of 1,000 KPAD tokens (worth about $3,100 as of Apr. 5, 2021) for three days to participate in sales. The total allocation for each participant is based on their pool weight score (the size of their stake vs the size of the total stake). Following this, a second round takes place, in which whitelist winners can purchase 0.5 BNB worth of tokens each.
What Makes KickPad Unique?
As we previously touched on, KickPad is designed to make investing in promising upcoming projects building on Binance Smart Chain as safe and secure as possible.
Some of its stand out features include:
Automatic Liquidity Locking:
One of the main ways nefarious projects perform an exit scam is by pulling liquidity on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap. KickPad eliminates this possibility by providing the first automatic liquidity locking solution on Binance Smart Chain. This entails forcibly locking the liquidity tokens provided by each project to ensure there will always be ample liquidity for the long term.
Guaranteed Allocations:
KickPad sets itself apart from many other launchpads in that users are able to secure guaranteed allocations in projects. This means no lotteries, no gas wars and more certainty.
As part of its ambition to empower investors, KickPad will ensure there is always an opportunity to receive a guaranteed allocation in any of its IDOs. This guarantee is only provided to users who stake their tokens, rather than simply hold them.
Built on Binance Smart Chain:
KickPad is built on Binance Smart Chain, a blockchain secured by a variant of proof-of-stake (POS) known as proof-of-staked-authority (POSA). This gives it several advantages over other launchpads built on Ethereum — including drastically reduced transaction fees and faster transaction confirmation times. This also means it is one of the few IDO launchpads capable of hosting the growing number of projects also building on BSC.
Long Vesting Schedule:
Besides the KPAD tokens sold in the KickPad public sale, all other tokens have extensive vesting and unlock schedules, indicating a long-term vision for the project. The team tokens are locked for a period of six months and then vested for a further 15 months, whereas partner and advisors are vested over 12 and 18 months respectively.
Zero Fees:
KickPad’s IDO launchpad does not take any commission from the sales, whereas TheKickDEX takes a low 1% fee from the seller. Instead, the KickPad team is primarily supported through revenue received from marketing and project incubations.
What Is an Initial DEX Offering (IDO)?
Similar to the solder fundraising system known as an initial coin offering (ICO), an initial DEX offering (IDO) is used to help nascent blockchain projects raise funds in exchange for their new tokens.
IDOs are a variant that sees the entire token sale and distribution process handled by a decentralized exchange platform or a decentralized swap platform (frequently known as a launchpad), such as KickPad. This process makes investing in early-stage projects safer, since participants can be sure they will always receive their tokens when using a reputable IDO launchpad or DEX.
How Does KickPad Compare With DuckSTARTER?
The landscape of IDO launchpads is becoming increasingly populated, and there are now close to a dozen platforms that primarily focus on helping everyday investors gain access to auspicious new crypto projects. The vast majority of these are built on the Ethereum blockchain.
KickPad is one of the few that is capable of supporting projects building on Binance Smart Chain, while DuckDAO’s DuckSTARTER platform is another. They are similar in this respect, but the way they go about this differs.
KickPad handles pre-sales and public sales as IDOs across its KickPad and KickDEX platforms, whereas DuckSTARTER is designed for private and public sales. Pre-sales and earlier funding rounds are instead managed in separate token-gated communities for holders of DuckDaoDime (DDIM) tokens.
Both platforms are also similar in that you need to stake tokens to participate in sales. For KickPad, a minimum of 1,000 KPAD needs to be staked, while staking above this value leads to a proportional increase in allocation. DuckSTARTER, on the other hand, separates users into tiers based on the number of DLP DUCK tokens staked, with the lowest threshold being 2,000 DUCKs for bronze tier and the highest being 20,000 for platinum tier. With increasing tier comes increasing allocations and perks.
Beyond this, KickPad is equipped to work with projects with anonymous teams, whereas DuckDAO does not generally host IDOs for anonymous projects.
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