How ALPHA works
Launching, the bonding curve, graduation, fees and buyback and burn, explained in plain language with real numbers.
Launching a token
Anyone can launch a token in four steps: give it a name, ticker and image; choose the asset it trades against; pick your creator reward; then confirm one transaction in your wallet.
- 1DetailsName, ticker, image, a short description and optional links. They are written on chain with the launch and can never be changed.
- 2PairingThe asset your token is priced in, such as WETH or USDC, on one chain.
- 3FeesLean, Standard or Creator+. This sets the creator share and cannot change later.
- 4ReviewEvery cost is listed, then one signature launches the token and its market.
Every token has the same fixed supply of 1,000,000,000. Nobody can mint more, and there is no team or developer allocation. On EVM chains the token contract has no owner, no admin, no pause and no upgrade; on Solana the mint keeps no mint or freeze authority and its metadata is immutable.
Verify a token
On EVM chains, every ALPHA token has an address ending in a1fa, and its contract names the ALPHA factory that launched it. Anyone can check this on a block explorer in three reads: launchFactory() on the token must be the ALPHA factory for that chain; isMarket() on that factory, given the token’s market(), must be true; and token() on that market must be the token itself. A copy can reuse a name, a ticker or even the address ending, but it cannot pass all three. Every launched EVM token is also in the ALPHA token list at /v1/tokenlist.json, which wallets and explorers can import. Read the full guide to verifying a token.
The bonding curve
A new token starts on a bonding curve: a contract that sells tokens at a price set by a formula. Each buy moves the price up a little and each sell moves it down. There is no order book and no one can pull the liquidity.
Every curve opens at a market cap of about $4,300 and graduates at about $69,000, measured at the pairing asset’s price when ALPHA admitted that pairing. The curve is set in the pairing asset, so the dollar levels then move with its price: if ETH rises 10%, a WETH market’s dollar values rise 10% too.
The progress bar on every market shows how much of the 800,000,000 has been sold. Buying and selling open your wallet straight away, in the native currency or the pairing asset: on EVM chains an ALPHA token needs no approval before you sell it, and a confirmation appears only when the price impact is large.
Graduation
When the curve sells out, the market graduates. The 200,000,000 reserved tokens and the pairing asset needed to open the pool at the curve’s final price go into a full-range pool position that is locked forever. Whatever part of the amount raised on the curve does not fit at that price (only a tiny rounding remainder) stays locked in the market. Nobody can withdraw either part. After graduation you trade in the pool, and the same fee and creator reward keep applying.
Fees
Every trade pays one fee, taken from the trade. The protocol fee is 1% on every preset. The creator chooses an extra share for themselves when launching: 0%, 0.25% or 0.5%.
For example, on a $1,000 buy with Standard, the fee is $12.50: $2.50 creator reward and $10.00 to the protocol, of which $5.00 buys back and burns ALPHA. Network fees (gas) are separate and go to the chain, not to ALPHA. After graduation on Solana, the total stays the same, but Meteora keeps 20% of it as its venue fee ($2.50 of the $12.50), and the creator reward and protocol fee are 80% of the amounts above. The review shows the Meteora share separately.
Buyback and burn
Half of every protocol fee is used to buy ALPHA on the market and burn it on chain, so those tokens are gone for good. The other half funds the protocol. ALPHA is not live yet. Once it is, burns happen automatically and each one is a public transaction you can check on the ALPHA page.
Questions
Yes. In step 3 you can send rewards to another address, such as a team or cold wallet. It is fixed at launch, and only that wallet can claim the rewards: it connects to ALPHA and claims them in Portfolio › Rewards.
