All four projects have been listed on top exchanges. What is the key to the rise of the crypto fundraising platform Buidlpad?

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

Since the end of last year, the long-dormant ICO market has revived. With the approval of Bitcoin ETFs, the Trump administration's crypto-friendly policies, and the push of a new bull market, public token sale platforms have once again become the focus of attention for project parties and retail investors.

In this new cycle, the once-leading ICO platform CoinList has gradually faded away, replaced by emerging platforms like Buidlpad, Echo, and LEGION. Taking Buidlpad as an example, it has helped four projects complete public offerings and all listed on Binance spot within just a year, with participants achieving nearly 10 times returns at their peak, seemingly completely replacing CoinList's position as the king of the track.

In this article, ChainCatcher provides a detailed analysis of the development background and rise of Buidlpad, interviewing several deep players from public offering platforms to interpret from multiple perspectives why it is Buidlpad.

Filling the Gap Left by CoinList

@PandaZeng1, a long-time user of multiple Launchpad platforms, has systematic observations of ICO/IDO/IEO platforms. He points out that the gameplay of all platforms is actually quite similar; the key lies in the performance of the first few projects. If the first or second project ends in failure, it will bring more subsequent effects to the platform, leading users to be unwilling to participate.

Regarding CoinList's decline, he believes another major issue is the poor user experience: for users in the Asia region, there is a need to queue, and the time difference is with the U.S. time zone, requiring Asian users to stay up late, and they may not even get a spot in line. Although CoinList later introduced a Karma points system (which requires participation in trading or swaps on the platform to earn points), this could not recover the loss of users.

In contrast, the success of new platforms like Echo and Buidlpad stems from the outstanding performance of the first few projects, successfully establishing a reputation. He emphasizes that the crypto market is filled with expectations; when rational, it is valuation-driven, and when irrational, it is dream-driven, ultimately looking at the "dream-to-value ratio."

@0xhahahaha shares similar insights regarding the factors behind CoinList's decline, namely the vicious cycle of the failure of wealth creation effects. She has participated in 5 or 6 CoinList presales and points out that the core issue of CoinList's decline is the decrease in the quality of projects launched on the platform, with projects starting to become mediocre. Some less popular projects cannot list on major exchanges (like Binance, Coinbase) and only list on smaller exchanges, leading to weak liquidity, with only sell orders and harsh sales conditions, possibly requiring a one-year lock-up, making it hard to profit even with immediate TGE.

During the period from 2023 to 2024, most tokens from projects that conducted public offerings on CoinList saw significant price drops after listing, with general declines between 70% and 98%, such as ARCH (-98%), FLIP (-73%), ZKL (-93%), NIBI (-78%), etc., with most FDVs below 100 million USD.

The success of Filecoin in 2017 established CoinList's image of "high returns." Just as investors were expecting CoinList to continuously replicate its success, the overall market cycle, regulatory changes, and the evolution of user demands made it difficult to sustain.

Now, due to unresolved issues such as an unfriendly platform experience, poor project quality, and low returns—factors most valued by players—community dissatisfaction has led to user loss, paving the way for the emergence of platforms like Echo, LEGION, MetaDAO, and Buidlpad to fill the market gap left by CoinList's decline.

Exceptional Performance

Taking the Buidlpad platform as an example, Buidlpad has assisted four major projects—Solayer, Sahara AI, Lombard Finance, and Falcon Finance—in completing public offerings and listing on Binance spot. Looking at Buidlpad's achievements, the first project Solayer was publicly sold at a valuation of 350 million USD, with a single token cost of 0.35 USD, peaking at 3.43 USD, bringing nearly 9.77 times returns for early participants. Sahara AI raised funds at a valuation of 600 million USD, with a token cost of 0.06 USD, peaking at 0.15 USD, achieving 2.68 times returns, with an oversubscription of 8.8 times and a total subscription of 75 million USD.

@0xhahahaha started to engage with Buidlpad through Falcon Finance, adopting the common player mentality of "going where there are opportunities to make money." She believes Buidlpad's success can be attributed to its strict project selection, with all projects ultimately successfully listing on major exchanges (like Binance spot), creating a stable wealth creation effect that attracted users from CoinList to Buidlpad.

Regarding Buidlpad's rise, @PandaZeng1 summarized several key factors. Firstly, the projects selected by Buidlpad tend to have high valuations, with projects generally being top-tier, listed on Binance and Upbit, excelling in providing user value, with projects commonly having 2-10 times return potential, and being relatively less strict than Echo, making it easier for retail investors to get involved.

It can be said that Buidlpad has its own narrative rhythm and selection criteria in terms of project selection, quality control, and distribution mechanisms. In addition to conducting comprehensive due diligence and research on each project to assess the feasibility of its business model and execution capabilities, Buidlpad has also deployed anti-witch attack technology, preventing false accounts and studios from participating in bulk through KYC verification, compliance checks, and security measures, ensuring the fairness of token distribution.

As of September 2025, the platform has received over 320 million USD in subscription commitments across its first four events, attracting more than 30,000 verified real users. The latest Momentum Finance project has also launched its public sale on the platform in October, planning to raise 4.5 million USD.

Additionally, Buidlpad has introduced a Squad system, allowing participants to earn additional incentive rewards through content creation based on the existing staking model. This not only assists projects in cultivating communities in the early stages but also encourages participants to contribute more beyond capital.

When discussing Buidlpad's projects that have all listed on Binance spot trading, it is essential to mention the background of founder Erick Zhang.

Binance-Linked Background

According to Erick Zhang's LinkedIn information and updates, he holds a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Macau. His early career experiences are not well disclosed, with the earliest work experience being as a vice president at Citibank from 2013 to 2015. He then joined Binance as an executive shortly after its establishment, showcasing his sharp professional judgment.

During his tenure at Binance, he served as the head of Binance Research and Binance Launchpad, accumulating rich experience in project research and selection, and participated in or led the establishment of the token listing system. Under his leadership, Binance Launchpad successfully helped over 20 projects complete ICOs, raising over 100 million USD in total, including many industry giants today, such as Polygon and Axie Infinity. The wealth creation effect of Launchpad tokens also made Binance Launchpad a benchmark product in the industry. Later, he also became the new CEO of CoinMarketCap, a subsidiary of Binance, upgrading from a vertical business leader to the independent business head.

After accumulating extensive data analysis, team management experience, and industry resources, Erick Zhang left in December 2022 to establish Nomad Capital. A few months later, Binance Labs announced an investment in the crypto venture fund Nomad Capital, maintaining a close relationship with Binance. At the end of last year, Erick launched Buidlpad.

It is noteworthy that among the four projects launched by Buidlpad so far, three have received investments from Nomad Capital. After these projects' tokens listed on the Binance spot market, Binance Labs, as a major LP of Nomad Capital, also benefited significantly.

It is evident that the close relationship with the Binance ecosystem is one of the key factors for Buidlpad's current success. Additionally, the market dividend period left by CoinList's decline and its unique project selection mechanism have paved the way for Buidlpad.

As Buidlpad's main competitor Echo was recently acquired by Coinbase, token fundraising platforms are becoming a new battleground for primary market pricing power. The decline of CoinList and the rise of Buidlpad and Echo essentially reflect the changes in the ICO structure. As the short-term speculative effects of platforms gradually cool down, public token sales are bridging the gap between user demands and platform mechanisms.

On one hand, they serve as an important channel for projects to acquire early users and initial liquidity; on the other hand, they solidify the platform's position as the first choice for investors to seek profits. Even as the market enters a prolonged downturn, such investment opportunities remain quite attractive.