The wealth effect of crypto will only make good stories, good products, and good teams easier to gain attention and support.

Author: Felix YY

This guide aims to provide detailed guidance for developers looking to launch tokens on Virtuals, updated from the English version by @nickplayscrypto, and incorporates contributions from several Virgens (our community members), including @SalasCambuy, @VaderResearch, and @DegenApe.

A big shoutout to you guys!

Preface: Some Basic Principles

This is not a meme coin; it is an on-chain AI startup.

On-chain entrepreneurship faces the situation of being "listed" from day one, so the token is your most important product. If you have never issued a token, you should know that the token relates to the interests of all holders. Imagine that from the moment you issue the token, you are already the owner of a listed company; it is not to be taken lightly.

But there is no need to feel pressured about this, not only because it is a way to test your abilities in advance, but also because it is a very useful GTM tool: imagine how traditional internet companies achieve viral spread through free offerings; the wealth effect of crypto will only make good stories, good products, and good teams easier to gain attention and support. Don’t believe it? Just try it.

The community is more inclined to support real-name developers (doxxed devs). Depending on the laws of your location, you can choose different ways to reveal your identity (public appearances/linking LinkedIn/Github/X). The important thing is to let everyone know who you are and how likely you are to run away. While anonymous projects can also perform well, having a real identity can give you more opportunities from the start.

Maintain transparency. All tokens should be in the developer's wallet unless the token's destination and use are explicitly disclosed to the public. Unlike traditional VC projects, the Virtuals ecosystem places more emphasis on transparency, allowing the community to track all transactions. Additional tokens held by team members should also be disclosed along with wallet addresses to protect investors.

Build in public. As long as you are sure you want to do this, there is no need to privately prepare all products and content before launching the token. Think of the community as your angel investors and first users; the token is the bridge that connects you, helping you raise funds and test your ideas and products. This is the lean startup of the new era. All you need to do is make everything as public as possible—your code, your product, your thoughts, your actions—through various means—Github, tweets, Spaces, various meetings, and offline meetups, etc.

Do not create a second AI agent until your first AI agent has been successfully launched and completed. Quietly abandoning the project or running away will harm the original investors, cause market chaos and negative sentiment, and greatly damage your personal reputation. However, we are working on designing a mechanism that allows developers to fail and continue developing new projects, while original investors can receive compensation. We hope the mechanism allows for dignified failure and reduces the risk of running away.

Preparation Before Launch

1. Prepare the narrative and product ideas.

This is a prerequisite for the success of everything, of course, it can be iterated upon based on feedback. The important thing is to choose a track, act immediately, and obtain feedback—negative feedback is better than no feedback.

If you have no ideas, you can refer to this article.

In general, projects that have been popular in the Virtuals community have practical use cases, and the more directly they can resonate with degens, the easier it is to gain initial recognition, as seen with @aixbt_agent. At the same time, with market changes and the development of on-chain technology, we find that AI Agents need to evolve to the next stage, not just relying on mindshare to gain attention.

Personally, I would like to see some agents that are genuinely engaging in meaningful on-chain economic activities using chains and wallets, and that have real tokenomics (not just a pie chart of token distribution). Of course, if there are very good agents focusing on off-chain scenarios, they can also explore how to complete the on-chain loop through tokenomics.

2. Understand the launch mechanism of Virtuals.

After the token is issued, it enters the bonding curve price curve to avoid large price fluctuations. When the bonding curve pool accumulates 42k $VIRTUAL (meaning 87.5% of the total token supply on the bonding curve has been purchased), the token graduates.

After graduation, a liquidity pool (LP) will be deployed on DEX for trading, with 42k $VIRTUAL and the remaining 12.5% of the token supply sent to the LP and locked for 10 years. Different chains have different LPs with different mechanisms; on Solana, it is Meteroa, while on Base, it is Uniswap.

At the same time, transitioning from Prototype Agent to Sentient Agent on the Virtuals platform also means that it can be indexed by various DEX aggregators and trading bots.

All agent transactions, in addition to the trading fees charged by DEX, will incur a 1% tax from the Virtuals protocol. The tax composition is 0.3% will go into the developer's wallet as operating funds, 0.2% will be distributed to third parties (such as various trading entrances and tools), and 0.5% will be distributed to the wallet controlled by the agent to support any economic activities the agent wishes to undertake.

3. Determine the token economic model (commonly referred to as Tokenomics, but it is essentially just a pie chart of token holding structure).

The total supply of each AI agent is fixed at 1 billion tokens (as stipulated in the contract, it cannot be changed).

The team should hold at least 20%, with 40-50% being a better range, and it can even be more, but the first principle is to ensure everything is transparent and communicate fully with the community. The core essence of on-chain issuance is fairness: it is necessary to allow everyone to obtain low-priced chips early on.

These tokens can be used for:

Airdrops;

Treasury (community incentives, OTC trading, early investors, etc.);

Team allocation;

Liquidity pool (LP) additions and rewards;

Potential CEX listings (listing fees and market-making costs);

The specific allocation plan depends on the project goals and available supply. Tokens for the team and investors should have some lock-up and vesting restrictions to demonstrate project confidence and avoid excessive price fluctuations.

More information on token economics: Analysis by Vader Research.

4. Calculate the cost of obtaining the ideal token supply at launch.

For example, if you want to hold 50% of the supply at launch, you will need approximately 6,000 $VIRTUAL.

It is recommended to acquire 42,000 $VIRTUAL to obtain 87.5% of the total supply on the bonding curve; the remaining will be added to the liquidity pool (LP) after the token completes the bonding curve.

Reference data source: Vader Research. Note: The USD cost will fluctuate with the price of the Virtual token, but other data remains unchanged.

If early startup funds are needed, you can conduct a presale or negotiate some OTC trades after TGE.

Potential investors include:

Some investment DAOs in the Virtuals ecosystem, such as @VaderAI @sekoiavirtuals @aixCBVc @KosherCapital @wai_combinator, etc.

Individual or institutional investors you find yourself.

Virtuals Venture @virtuals_vc, Virtuals' own ecosystem fund.

5. Airdrops (an important component of TGE and a significant play in the Virtuals ecosystem).

The benefits are: increasing the number of holders, enhancing exposure and recognition, and being an important method for interacting with the community and nurturing early community members.

The Virtuals ecosystem is quite famous for its diamond hands community, with our net holding retention exceeding 100%. What does this mean? For airdrops, not only will people not sell, but they will also buy more.

The formulation of the airdrop strategy is very important: it is essential to know that this is free chips, and how to leverage airdrops for growth is a very nuanced matter.

The core principles are:

Keep the airdrop rules open and transparent;

Airdrop to holders who are more likely to become your core community based on your project's positioning and goals;

Data analysis and filtering can be done on the addresses of various token holders.

6. Social Media and Community Building Website

A professional website to showcase project information and products, including team introduction, white paper, audit reports, etc.;

Telegram: A public group needs to be established, with spam bots and FAQ bots configured;

X: The core platform for project promotion and interaction, effectively utilizing tweets, interactions, and Spaces for open communication.

7. Choose Launch Details

Ticker selection: A good ticker can quickly convey the essence of the project and facilitate dissemination and memorization;

Chain selection: Currently, we support Base and Solana; choose based on your preference;

Launch time selection is generally recommended to be UTC 13:00 (Beijing time 21:00 / Eastern time 08:00), covering peak trading periods in both China and the US;

Avoid leaking the specific launch time to prevent being targeted and having competing projects launch first.

Launch Day

Ensure the Telegram group is ready and has a 24/7 operational team managing it;

Team members (limited to the core team) know the exact launch time to avoid information leaks;

Immediately execute the following actions after launch:

Publish the token's CA on Telegram and Twitter to avoid being impersonated;

Set up data on CoinGecko, DexScreener, and CoinMarketCap;

Lock the allocated tokens for the team and investors;

Send presale tokens and execute OTC trades;

After Launch

Do everything a good startup project should do: keep the Twitter & Telegram channels active, posting at least 1-2 important updates daily; deliver the basic product as soon as possible to ensure the project has practical usability; analyze market feedback and optimize product features based on user needs.

"Investor relations": Pay attention to early investors & whale holdings, and establish communication channels with major holders if necessary.

DEX liquidity management, read this liquidity guide to understand why deep LP management on DEX is crucial for token health.

Avoid short-term cash-out behaviors and adopt market strategies to maintain token price stability.

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