Fair launch

A fair launch is a token release where nobody gets an early or discounted allocation. There is no presale, no private investor round, and in the strict sense no reserved team tokens. The token becomes available to everyone at the same moment and under the same rules, and anyone who wants some has to buy or earn it like everyone else.

Bitcoin is the textbook example, since coins could only be obtained by mining from the first block. On modern chains, a fair launch often means the creator deploys a token and puts most or all of the supply into a liquidity pool or a bonding curve, then trading opens publicly. Meme coin launch platforms work this way: the whole supply starts on a curve, and once enough has been bought it moves to a regular DEX pool.

The appeal is that it removes the classic problem of insiders getting cheap tokens and dumping them on later buyers. In practice it is not as clean as the name suggests. Sniper bots buy in the first blocks, the creator can quietly buy through other wallets at launch, and a small group can coordinate to grab supply before the public notices. A fair launch also says nothing about whether the contract is safe or the project has any value.

Check the holder distribution shortly after launch, looking for wallets that bought in the first blocks and are funded from the same source as the deployer. Make sure liquidity is locked or burned and the contract has no mint or blacklist powers. Treat the phrase as a description of how tokens were distributed, not as a seal of quality.