Morning Minute: Coinbase Leans in to ICOs, Monad Up First

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter published by: tyler warner. The analyzes and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to Morning Minutes on substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Major cryptocurrencies will collapse overnight. BTC -1%, $104,800
• Coinbase announces Coinbase token sales ICO platform, holds MON sale
• Monad shared tokenomics and public sale details for MON ($2.5 billion fdv)
• Uniswap flips fee switch and plans to burn 100 million UNI tokens (UNI +20%)
• U.S. Treasury and IRS issue guidance to make ETF staking easier

🚀 Coinbase unveils its own token launchpad led by Monad

And monads stand to benefit first.

📌What happened

Coinbase just announced its new “Coinbase Token Sales” platform as a regulated and transparent way for retail users to purchase new tokens directly through the app.

This marks the first time Coinbase has reintroduced public token launches to US retailers for the first time since the 2017 ICO boom.

TLDR:

• The platform will be holding a monthly sale starting with Monad’s MON tokens from November 17th to 22nd.
• Users have one week to submit purchase requests in USDC. Allocations are determined by a “bottom-up” algorithm that processes small orders first to maximize distribution.
• Purchased tokens will be automatically listed on Coinbase after the sale, giving your project instant liquidity and visibility.
• Users who sell tokens within the first 30 days of launch may be penalized for future distributions.

This all comes after it acquired Cobie’s Echo platform for $400 million just a month ago.

🗣️ What they are saying

“We designed the token sale to be the ideal launch method that is transparent, fair, and compliant.” – coinbase blog

“This is the first large-scale, retailer-accessible token sale in the United States since 2018.” – company statement

“We are excited to make MON our first public company and bring Monad’s high-throughput technology to millions of new users.” – coinbase announcement

🧠 Why is it important?

This is a clear signal that ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) are fully back in the crypto space.

We expect all major protocols and apps to do some sort of ICO in the near future.

And that will likely be done at the expense of airdrops.

Giving tokens to buyers through an ICO makes more sense than giving tokens for free to users through an airdrop.

Both are types of community creations, but one comes with skin in the game and the other doesn’t.

Monads are a perfect example. They set aside 3.3% of the token supply for airdrops (widely distributed across Connecticut) and 7.5% for token sales.

Therefore, there is still an element of “free money” for lucky airdrop recipients, along with a path for investors to put in their funds and reap the benefits of Monad’s launch.

We expect this to become the new standard.

And we expect to see more and more teams looking to leverage Coinbase’s token sales platform at launch as a de facto “stamp of approval” from one of the biggest companies in the space.

🌎 Macro Codes and Memes

Some crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

For corporate bonds/ETFs

with a meme

• meme coin leader Most of them are red along with the major. Doge -3%, Shiva -2%, Pepe -3%, Peng -3%, Bonk -3%, Trump -3%, SPX -7%, Fatcoin -10%
• Wojak (+100%) of $5.6 million was Solana’s biggest gainer. 401jk (+63%) and Pumpcade (+32%) were other top stocks.

💰 Tokens, Airdrops and Protocol Trackers

Here’s a summary of the day’s key token, protocol, and airdrop news:

🚚 What’s happening with NFTs?

Here’s a list of the day’s other notable headlines regarding NFTs:

• NFT leader Most of the colors were red. Punks -1% for 35 ETH, Pudgy -3% for 5.9, BAYC +2% for 6.4 ETH. Hypurr -4% at 860 HYPE
• Kodas (+7%) was the top mover to watch
• moonbird We have opened a goods store that carries early capsule collections.