A crypto launchpad is a platform that runs a token sale for a project, handling who can buy, how much each buyer gets, how money is collected and when the tokens arrive. In 2026 the choice of launchpad is one of the biggest decisions in a token launch, because each platform brings its own audience, its own rules and its own reputation along with the sale.

At AnkhLabs we have covered the wider picture in our guides to token sales and presales and token launch strategy. This piece goes one level down. It looks at the launchpads that matter this year, how each one works and what each means for the way you plan and market a sale.

What is a crypto launchpad?

A launchpad sits between a project and the public. The project brings tokens and a story. The launchpad brings buyers who have already passed identity checks, a sale page, a way to pay and a set of rules about allocation and vesting. Vesting means tokens are released in stages after the sale rather than all at once.

Launchpads come in a few shapes. Exchange launchpads such as Binance's programmes and Coinbase's token sales put a project in front of an exchange's existing users, often with a listing to follow. Independent platforms such as Legion and Buidlpad run sales for curated projects and send buyers their tokens onchain. Some sit in between, as when Kraken runs sales built with Legion. The label matters less than three questions. Who is the audience? Who decides allocation? What happens on the day the token starts trading?

How big is the token sale market in 2026?

Smaller than the headlines suggest. Using CryptoRank data, Crypto Briefing reported that 47 ICOs, IDOs and IEOs raised a combined $40 million in the second quarter of 2026, with capital raised down more than 95% from the cycle peak. The strongest quarter in that dataset was the first quarter of 2025, when 428 public sales raised $849 million.

A follow-up from Crypto Briefing on 11 August 2026 put the first quarter of 2026 at about $390 million across 105 sales and found that Ethereum led all chains with $334 million raised in the year so far. The pattern is clear even where the figures are rough. There are far fewer sales than in 2024 and 2025, and the money that is still moving concentrates on a handful of platforms with strong brands and strict rules.

Which crypto launchpads matter in 2026?

Sources: Coinbase via The Block, CryptoSlate, CoinMarketCap, The Cryptonomist. Rules as of October 2026.

How do Coinbase token sales work?

Coinbase opened its platform in November 2025, the first public token sales for US retail since the SEC's crackdown on ICOs in 2018, according to The Block. Its rules are the most opinionated in the market. Allocations are filled "from the bottom", so small requests are met before large ones. Buyers who sell within 30 days of listing may receive smaller allocations in later sales. Issuers and their affiliates are locked for six months and must publish detailed disclosures before anyone commits. Buyers pay no fees, and Coinbase takes a share of the proceeds from the issuer instead.

The first sale was Monad, which offered 7.5% of its supply at $0.025 per token. It started slowly and then passed its target of about $187 million, reaching nearly $216 million on the final day. "The purpose of the MON token sale is to achieve the broadest distribution," the Monad co-founder Keone Hon wrote at the time.

Coinbase also owns Echo, an onchain fundraising platform it bought in a deal worth about $375 million in October 2025. Echo's Sonar product lets a project host its own public sale. The best-known Sonar sale was MegaETH's in October 2025, which The Block reported in its Monad coverage drew $1.39 billion in commitments for $50 million of tokens.

How do Legion and Kraken Launch work?

Legion is built around the idea that a project should choose who gets its tokens. Applicants link wallets and profiles, and the Legion Score weighs onchain activity along with social and developer signals. CryptoSlate's review stresses that each project decides how the score affects its sale, and quotes Legion's own line that "A high Legion Score does not secure a place." Participation requires full identity checks.

Kraken Launch is Kraken's token sale offering developed with Legion, so one sale can run on both at once. When it was announced in September 2025, The Block reported that up to 20% of each joint sale would be reserved for Legion Score holders, with the rest open to the public on both platforms and the tokens listed on Kraken soon after. The Jumper sale shows how lopsided demand can be. Applications ran from 29 September to 2 October 2026 against a $3 million hard cap, and announced deposits reached about $48.6 million, most of which were never accepted as allocations. Legion's own stats claim more than $450 million in capital committed and more than 30 compliant sales, a committed figure rather than money actually raised.

How does Buidlpad work?

Buidlpad runs a small number of curated community sales. Its most cited result is Falcon Finance, whose announcement said the sale drew $112.8 million in commitments for a $4 million raise from more than 190,000 participants in 141 countries, with $108.8 million refunded. That is a sponsored release from the project, so read it as the project's claim. It still shows the basic pattern of curated launchpads. The raises are small, the interest is huge and most buyers leave with a fraction of what they asked for.

How do Binance Alpha and HODLer Airdrops work?

Binance runs several launch tools rather than one launchpad. Binance Alpha is its early access section for new tokens that are not yet listed on Binance's main spot market. According to CoinMarketCap's guide, users earn Alpha Points every day from their balances and from buying Alpha tokens, totalled over a rolling 15-day window. Token events such as sales and airdrops through Binance Wallet need a minimum score, and joining spends points. The guide also notes that Alpha inclusion "does not guarantee a future listing."

HODLer Airdrops work differently. Binance gives a share of a new token's supply to people who hold BNB in its Simple Earn or On-Chain Yields products during a snapshot window. When Fabric Protocol became the 62nd HODLer Airdrops project on 18 March 2026, 100 million ROBO tokens went to BNB holders, and the same subscriptions also qualify users for Launchpool and Megadrop rewards. Nothing is sold here. The project gives up supply in exchange for distribution to Binance's audience and a listing.

For a founder, the trade-off is reach against control. Binance's audience is huge, but much of it is farming points, and our article on sybil detection and airdrop farming explains why that audience often sells on day one.

What does a crypto launchpad mean for your launch plan?

Choosing a launchpad changes the marketing job in a few concrete ways.

• Pick the audience before the platform. Coinbase and Kraken reach verified retail buyers, including in the US. Binance reaches traders who already chase new listings. Legion lets you favour people with a real onchain history. Decide which of these groups you want holding your token in six months, then choose.

• Market for selection, not just sign-ups. When a project picks buyers, the work before the sale is about attracting applicants who fit, through content, community and the right creators. A big waitlist full of farmers looks good on a slide and does nothing for the chart.

• Report the right number. Oversubscription multiples are tempting headlines, but deposits that are refunded are not demand you can count on after listing. Lead with the number of real holders and how the allocation was spread.

• Plan the first 30 days after the sale. Rules against flipping and issuer lockups only help if there is a reason to keep holding. Our TGE marketing plan and exchange listing strategy cover that stretch.

What we'd tell a founder choosing a launchpad

First, treat the sale as a distribution event, not a fundraising event. With raises this small, the money matters less than who ends up holding the token. For the Cross The Ages public sale, which closed at $500K+ with the IDO fully allocated, the work rested on different messaging for players and for investors, because the two groups buy for different reasons.

Second, choose creators the way a curated launchpad chooses buyers. For the OKX Alpha public sale, KOL distribution supported a $500K close, with creators selected on trading credibility and audience quality rather than follower count. That matters more in 2026, when the platforms themselves reward quality over volume. More examples are in our case studies.

Third, read the platform rules as part of the marketing brief. Lockups, flipper penalties, points thresholds and identity checks all change who can take part and what you can promise. Our go-to-market strategy work starts by matching the sale format to the audience you want.

If you're weighing up launchpads for a token sale and want a second opinion, talk to AnkhLabs.

The bottom line

There are fewer token sales in 2026, and the ones that happen run on platforms with strict rules and strong brands. That is good news for serious projects. A crypto launchpad now does part of the filtering that marketing used to do alone, and the founders who get the most from it are the ones who pick the audience first and the platform second.

This article is for information only and is not investment or legal advice. Token sales are regulated differently in each country. Figures are as of October 2026 unless stated.