Drip — Supercharged Launchpools
Defining the new Meta for Token Launches & Distribution
tl;dr: Drip supercharges Launchpools by adding yield to the equation. Users stake stable assets or ETH and receive tokens and airdrops in return. The deposited funds are automatically restaked into blue chip DeFi Protocols and LSTs to generate yield flowing to the Pool Creator’s treasury, which enables the project to offer strong incentives to attract more users, creating a Launchpool flywheel.
GM Dear Reader. Welcome to Drip.
Before we dive into the ins and outs of Drip, let’s take a step back and look at token launches and the current meta for them by evaluating common launch methods.
IDOs/Launchpad sales: Usually a lottery/stakeholder based system that assigns relatively small ticket sizes to applicants who then get to invest.
Airdrops: Usage/Engagement based distribution of tokens to many users at the same time. Often a game of trying to implement sybil resistance countered by more sophisticated ways of airdrop farming. Recently being tied to “points farming” for users to track progress as well as enabling referral systems.
Private sales: Exclusive, large ticket investments by insiders, angels, VCs, and KOLs. Often accompanied by cliffs and vesting of tokens and requirements for additional value add, such as promotion, advisory, and other support.
LBPs: Simply speaking, Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools span several days where a pool of tokens and stablecoins gets gradually re-balanced to create consistent sell pressure on a token, which enables users to enter on their own terms while reducing the efficacy of bots and other tools.
While these methods generally work well, a new meta-game is on the horizon…
The Evolution of Launchpools
“What’s new about Launchpools?” you may ask. “They’ve been around forever.” Fair question.
Launchpools have been around for a while, in their own niche, with a lot of iteration. Back in 2019, we had the Edgeware Lockdrop, where users could deposit and lock ETH for varying times to receive an airdrop later down the line.
Market leader Binance has gradually put a higher priority on Launchpools over their IDOs with billions in value staked at any given time, driving value towards holding BNB and FDUSD on their exchange.
Arguably, Blast and EigenLayer have proven incredible product market fit for capital-based airdrops, attracting billions in capital to bootstrap deposits that accrue points leading to (hopefully) an airdrop down the line — value unknown, potential undeniably massive.
And lastly, and most importantly, we have Morpheus AI. If you have not yet heard of Morpheus: They have added yet another twist to Launchpools that has proven quite successful. Users may deposit Lido stETH to share a MOR token reward, but giving up their yield to Morpheus in the process.
This creates a win-win scenario for everyone involved. Teams have massive amounts of tokens they need to distribute while looking for stable funding while the community has a demand for tokens that may significantly appreciate in value.
This version of a Launchpool fulfills the needs of both sides while removing all risk for depositors — after all, they keep 100% of their principal. The Morpheus team stands to make millions until May, and their users will feel no pressure of recouping costs anytime soon. Because there are none.
The economically educated amongst you will have perked up just now. “Ha! Gotcha! What about the Opportunity Cost?”
You are, of course, correct. Though if you are relatively risk averse, and holding a lot of ETH, there are currently few alternatives to Morpheus (and therefore limited actual opportunity cost) if you want to use your ETH to earn valuable tokens before they hit markets. The only real opportunity cost is the stable yield you are foregoing, but in a bull market environment, tokens are seen as the preferable reward by a majority of users.
There aren’t enough opportunities like Morpheus. But not for long…
Introducing Drip: Supercharged Launchpools
Now that you are up to speed on the current meta game for launches, it’s time to introduce Drip.
In a nutshell, Drip combines all recent developments concerning Launchpools and supercharges them with easy deployment and UX, superior yield, and more variety.
With Drip, partners can set up a program similar to Blast, EigenLayer, and Morpheus quickly and efficiently, creating the following, repeatable value flow:
- Create a Drip Pool with a base asset, either ETH, USDC, USDT, or DAI.
- Incentivize Pool with rewards, either tokens already trading, locked tokens (pre-TGE), or airdrop points.
- Users deposit base asset to accrue rewards.
- Base asset is automatically redeposited into heavily audited, blue chip DeFi protocols.
- All yield generated is streamed to the Pool Creator.
Drip can be used for many purposes.
We group our use cases in three broad categories.
1: Launchpools
Lead up to your TGE — Morpheus style. Let users deposit their stable assets to accrue tokens before they go live.
Drip Launchpools are accessible to anyone (unlike IDOs), allow the deployment of size (unlike conventional airdrops), and ensure a wide distribution of your token (unlike all restricted/complex token sales).
Drip allows projects to earn much higher yield than Morpheus does with stETH — by up to 600%. This allows them to be much more generous with rewards, which then attract more depositors and ensures wider distribution. A token launch flywheel.
Some sample math: The best strategies supported by Drip currently yield 15–25% (Aave, Morpho, Gearbox). A $10M launchpool yields a solid $125k to the project per month at 15%. Morpheus, sitting at $400M could stand to make up to $4-5M per month on Drip, even taking dilution of yields into account.
2: Droppools
What Drip Launchpools are to Morpheus, Droppools are to Eigenlayer and Blast. Deposit funds, earn points, just like you’re used to. Droppools can be seamlessly integrated with any existing airdrop programs, allowing projects running them to actually monetize their hype by attracting whales who are not into manual fiddling to earn a relatively small airdrop.
Drip cuts to the chase, letting whales skip the automated sybil attacks for a more positive alternative that creates recurring revenue for projects running points programs.
3: Earn Pools.
Remember OHM-style bonding? Users were able to trade OHM-ETH LP for pure OHM at a slight discount. Bonding quickly spread to other projects as a way of indirectly selling treasury tokens without dumping them on market.
Similarly, Earn Pools allow projects with already trading tokens to set up an Earn widget powered by Drip to allow their community convenient and risk-free farming of their token using idle stablecoins or ETH.
Closing Thoughts & How to get Involved
Congrats — you’re now up to speed with the Token Launch Meta and how we intend to revolutionize it.
We will soon be going live with v0 — a fully functional MVP of Drip that may lack some polish yet, as well as our first pools. The smart contract infrastructure powering Drip has been completed and is audited multiple times (see docs for details), so all work stopping us from calling this a v1 will be done on the front end. Expect quick iteration, improvements, and new features in the coming weeks.
Lastly, the questions many of you have been asking: Presale? Token? Airdrop?
As of the time of writing this, there has been no raise for Drip, neither is there one currently ongoing. Our focus is fully on shipping a good product. The Drip team consists mostly of pre-2017 veterans and DeFi buildooors. We have a clear timeline in mind.
For now, we are introducing DripPoints with v0 of Drip. To earn them, simply start using Drip and participate in Pools set up by our partners and participate in our referral program. We will likely greatly expand and iterate on the points program, so stay tuned.
Follow our socials to stay up to date.
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/DripDripFi
Telegram: https://t.me/+japN7-kt7JY1MTQy
Docs: https://drip.gitbook.io/drip-finance
More soon. Over and Out.
