Forward the Original Title‘Community + VC Dual-Driven Funding May Become the New Paradigm’

The proportion of VC in the above-mentioned projects is generally between 10% and 30%, which has not changed much compared with the previous cycle. Most projects choose to distribute tokens to the community through airdrops, viewing it as a reasonable method of community distribution. However, in reality, users do not hold the tokens for a long time after receiving the airdrop, but tend to sell immediately. This is because in the minds of users, project parties tend to hide a large number of tokens in airdrops. Therefore, after TGE, there is huge selling pressure in the market. The concentration of tokens is not conducive to the effectiveness of airdrops. This phenomenon has persisted over the past few years with little change in the way tokens are distributed. It can be seen from the performance of token prices that the price performance of VC-driven tokens is very poor, and tokens often enter a unilateral downward trend after issuance.

Among them, $SHELL is slightly different. It distributes 4% of its tokens through IDO, and the project’s IDO market value is only US$20 million, which makes it unique among many VC-driven tokens. In addition, Soon and Pump.fun chose to distribute more than 50% of the total token supply through fair launches, and combined a small number of VCs and KOLs to conduct a large proportion of community fundraising. This method of transferring profits to the community may be easier to gain acceptance. At the same time, the proceeds from community fundraising can be locked up in advance. Although project teams no longer hold large amounts of tokens, they can repurchase positions in the market through market-making, which not only sends positive signals to the community but also allows them to recover positions at lower prices.

The End of the Memecoin Bubble Frenzy: Liquidity Siphoning and the Collapse of Market Structure

The shift from a market equilibrium dominated by VC-driven Builders to a pure “pump” token issuance bubble model has led to a zero-sum game for these tokens, ultimately benefiting only a few while most retail investors are more likely to exit with losses. This phenomenon will exacerbate the breakdown of primary and secondary market structures, and rebuilding or accumulating positions may take much longer.

The atmosphere in the Memecoin market has hit rock bottom. As retail investors gradually realize that Memecoins essentially remain under the control of conspiracy groups—including DEXs, capital providers, market makers, VCs, KOLs, and celebrities—Memecoin issuance has completely lost its fairness. Sharp losses in the short term quickly affect users’ psychological expectations, and this token issuance strategy is approaching its cyclical end.

Over the past year or more, retail investors have earned relatively higher profits in the Memecoin sector. Although the Agent narrative drove market enthusiasm through innovation in open-source communities as its cultural core, this wave of AI Agent hype has proven unable to change the fundamental nature of Memecoins. Numerous individual Web2 developers and Web3 shell projects rapidly occupied the market, leading to the emergence of many AI Memecoin projects disguised as “value investments.”

Community-driven tokens are controlled by conspiracy groups and undergo “speedruns” through malicious price manipulation. This approach severely impacts the long-term development of projects. Previously, Memecoin projects relieved token selling pressure through religious belief or support from minority groups, achieving project exit processes acceptable to users through market maker operations.

However, when Memecoin communities no longer hide behind religion or minority groups, it indicates that market sensitivity has declined. Retail investors still await opportunities for overnight wealth, eagerly seeking tokens with certainty and hoping for projects with deep liquidity upon launch—precisely the fatal blow conspiracy groups deliver to retail investors. Bigger stakes mean richer returns, which begin to attract teams from outside the industry. After these teams secure their profits, they won’t use stablecoins to purchase cryptocurrencies because they lack faith in Bitcoin. The siphoned liquidity will permanently leave the cryptocurrency market.

The Death Spiral of VC Tokens: Inertia Traps and Liquidity Squeeze Under a Shorting Consensus

The previous cycle’s strategies have become obsolete, yet many projects persist in using the same approach out of inertia. Allocating small portions of tokens to VCs while maintaining high control, leaving retail investors to buy on exchanges, is a strategy that no longer works. However, project teams and VCs are reluctant to change due to ingrained habits. The fundamental flaw of VC-driven tokens is their inability to secure early advantages at the Token Generation Event (TGE). Users no longer expect to profit from buying newly issued tokens, as they assume that project teams and exchanges hold a large supply, creating an uneven playing field. Meanwhile, VC returns have significantly declined in this cycle, leading to lower investment amounts. With retail investors unwilling to absorb tokens on exchanges, the issuance of VC-backed tokens faces severe challenges.

For VC-backed projects or exchanges, direct listings may no longer be the optimal strategy. Liquidity extracted by celebrity or political tokens is not being reinvested into other tokens like Ethereum, SOL, or altcoins. As a result, once a VC-backed token gets listed, perpetual contract funding rates quickly drop to -2%. The project team lacks incentives to push up the price, as listing the token was the primary goal. Similarly, exchanges won’t intervene, as shorting newly listed tokens has become a market consensus.

The more frequently tokens enter an immediate downtrend after issuance, the stronger the market perception becomes, reinforcing a “bad money drives out good” effect. Suppose in the next TGE cycle, 70% of projects immediately dump their tokens, while only 30% attempt to support market-making. As retail traders repeatedly experience post-launch price crashes, they develop a reflexive shorting behavior, even if they recognize the high risks of doing so. When futures markets reach extreme short positioning, projects and exchanges may be forced to join the short-selling trend to recover the profits they could not secure through token dumping. Seeing this dynamic, even the 30% of projects willing to support market-making may hesitate to absorb the massive price gap between spot and futures markets. Consequently, the probability of post-TGE price crashes will rise further, and the number of projects aiming to generate long-term value after token issuance will shrink.

The VC sector’s reluctance to lose control over token allocations has led to no meaningful progress or innovation in TGE mechanisms over the past four years. Inertia among VCs and project teams is far stronger than expected. Due to fragmented liquidity, long VC unlocking periods, and constant turnover of project teams and investors, issues in the TGE model persist, yet participants remain indifferent. Many first-time project teams, unfamiliar with market challenges, tend to fall into survivorship bias, believing they can deliver a different outcome despite the historical failures of this approach.

Dual-driven Paradigm Migration: On-chain Transparent Gaming Breaking the Pricing Deadlock of VC Tokens

Why choose VC+ community dual driver? A purely VC-driven model will increase the pricing gap between users and project parties, which is not conducive to the price performance in the early stages of token issuance; while a completely fair launch model is prone to malicious manipulation by the cabal behind it, losing a large number of low-price chips, and the price will go through a cycle of fluctuations in one day, which is a devastating blow to the development of future projects.

Only by combining both approaches, with VCs entering at the project’s inception to provide appropriate resources and development planning, can teams reduce early-stage financing needs and avoid the worst-case scenario of losing all tokens through a fair launch while receiving only low-certainty returns.

Over the past year, more teams have discovered that the traditional financing model is failing—giving small percentages to VCs, maintaining high control over supply, and waiting for exchange listings to pump prices is no longer sustainable. With VCs tightening their pockets, retail investors refusing to become exit liquidity, and major exchanges raising listing thresholds, a new approach better suited to bear markets is emerging under this triple pressure: partnering with leading KOLs and a small number of VCs to advance projects through large-proportion community distributions and low market cap cold starts.

Projects like Soon and Pump Fun are pioneering new paths through “large-proportion community launches”—securing endorsements from top KOLs, distributing 40%-60% of tokens directly to the community, and launching projects at valuations as low as $10 million to achieve multi-million dollar fundraising. This model builds consensus FOMO through KOL influence, locks in returns in advance, and exchanges high circulation for market depth. Although surrendering short-term supply control advantages, projects can buy back tokens at low prices during bear markets through compliant market-making mechanisms. Essentially, this represents a paradigm shift in power structure: from the VC-dominated hot potato game (institutional buying, exchange selling, retail holding the bag) to transparent gameplay based on community consensus pricing, where project teams and communities form a new symbiotic relationship in liquidity premiums.

Recently, Myshell can be seen as a breakthrough attempt between BNB and the project team. 4% of its tokens were issued through IDO, with an IDO market cap of only $20 million. To participate in the IDO, users needed to purchase BNB and operate through exchange wallets, with all transactions directly recorded on-chain. This mechanism brings new users to the wallet while enabling them to obtain fair opportunities in a more transparent environment. For Myshell, market makers are utilized to ensure reasonable price increases. Without sufficient market support, token prices cannot maintain a healthy range. As the project develops, transitioning from low to high market cap and continuously strengthening liquidity, it gradually gains market recognition. The conflict between project teams and VCs centers on transparency. When project teams launch tokens through IDO and no longer rely on exchange listings, this resolves transparency conflicts between both parties. The on-chain token unlocking process becomes more transparent, ensuring that past conflicts of interest are effectively resolved. On the other hand, traditional CEXs face difficulties with frequent price crashes after token issuance, leading to gradually declining trading volumes, while through on-chain data transparency, exchanges and market participants can more accurately assess a project’s true situation.

It can be said that the core conflict between users and project teams involves pricing and fairness. The purpose of fair launches or IDOs is to meet users’ expectations for token pricing. The fundamental problem with VC tokens is the lack of buy orders after listing, with pricing and expectations being the main reasons. The breakthrough point lies with project teams and exchanges. Only by fairly distributing tokens to the community and continuously advancing the technology roadmap can a project achieve value growth.

As a decentralized community organization, Movemaker has received millions of dollars in funding and resource support from the Aptos Foundation. Movemaker will have independent decision-making power, aiming to efficiently respond to the needs of developers and ecosystem builders in the Chinese-speaking area and promote the further expansion of Aptos in the global Web3 field. Movemaker will take the lead in building the Aptos ecosystem in a community + VC dual-driven approach, including DeFi, the deep integration of artificial intelligence and blockchain, innovative payments, stablecoins and RWA.

About Movemaker

Movemaker is the first official community organization authorized by the Aptos Foundation and jointly launched by Ankaa and BlockBooster. It focuses on promoting the construction and development of the Aptos Chinese-speaking area ecology. As the official representative of Aptos in the Chinese-speaking region, Movemaker is committed to building a diverse, open, and prosperous Aptos ecosystem by connecting developers, users, capital, and numerous ecosystem partners.

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