Opal Fair Launch
Following the introduction of Opal protocol features through a series of threads and articles detailing the intricacies of the product flywheel as well as presenting the project’s vision and guidelines, and while the smart contracts suite is being audited in anticipation of the launch in production; the $GEM token public offering is the ultimate step toward the complete release of Opal ecosystem components.
To strengthen alignment with the launch partners’ ecosystem, and to offer a fair launch mechanism to Opal early believers, the $GEM public sale will occur through a Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP), which will open for a 3 days period from Jan. 10th to Jan. 13th of 2024.
What is a LBP
A Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP) is an innovative decentralized approach to facilitate fair and transparent token launches. It operates on a high-to-low pricing mechanism, similar to a Dutch Auction. This is a strategic choice to mitigate the influence of sniper bots and large investor (whale) manipulation. Participants have the opportunity to engage in community-driven price discovery, buying tokens at a price point they find equitable.
Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools (LBPs) dynamically change the paired tokens weighting (e.g from 98/2 to 80/20), using math based on time-dependent weights. The starting and end weights and times are predefined, and the pool owner is the only address that can add or remove liquidity.
Participants can buy in at any time during the LBP duration, pushing the token price up and deepening paired liquidity.
Strategic and Fair Public Sale
Unlike batch auctions, where tokens are allocated based on set contributions, potentially allowing large investors to dominate, LBPs provide a more equitable landscape with a dynamic pricing.
This pricing model discourages the quick, profit-seeking purchases typical of sniper bots and mercenary frontrunners in general LP launches. Instead, it encourages participation from individuals genuinely interested in the project, ensuring a more equitable and intentional distribution of tokens.
In the specific case of Opal, the decision to conduct the $GEM token generation event through an LBP fulfills several strategic needs:
first it highlights the project’s alignment with its ecosystem,
second it enables to set up a flexible public sale mechanism with reasonable initial funding requirements,
and third it mitigates the time-sensitiveness of stealth launches.
To avoid issuing idle circulating supply of $GEM before auditors approval to deploy Opal’s smart contracts suite, the LBP will be conducted with a temporary token.
This token will be redeemable 1:1 for $GEM just before launch in production. The $GEM launch price will be announced at the end of LBP to prevent speculation on temporary tokens.
Fjord Foundry Launchpad Partnership
Since Balancer dapp interface can only display the LBP along all other pools of the DEX, it would result in a very limited and non custom set of metrics / features for participants to acknowledge the current state of the public sale as well as projections based on weight shifts to time their entry.
To solve this issue, Opal will partner with Fjord Foundry, offering the smoothest experience for participants, who will be able to optimally track the evolution of the sale.
Fjord's long-standing reputation led to a recent exclusive collaboration agreement between the Balancer DAO and Fjord Foundry, making it a trustful partner for Opal public offering.
Opal’s LBP parameters
The public sale start date is January 10th, starting price will be $1.00 with initial pool weights of 98:2 pairing $GEM with $ETH. The public sale will remain open for 3 days until January 13th and distribute a hard cap of 5,000,000 tokens.
Stay tuned for the next article, releasing last details and audits results before Opal finally launches in production!