How to plan a perfect TGE launch? Marketing campaign or stress test

Written by: Stacy Muur

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News Link:

Disclaimer: This article is a repost. Readers can find more information via the original link. If the author has any objections to the form of reposting, please contact us, and we will make modifications as requested by the author. The repost is for information sharing only, does not constitute investment advice, and does not represent Wu Talk’s views or positions.

Token issuance is not a marketing campaign, but an economic stress test.

In fact, most TGE failures are not due to poor products or inexperienced teams, but because their foundations were never ready for public scrutiny, competition, and narrative shifts.

In this article, I share a story with @AlexTops1 from @CoinList about how to increase the odds of a successful protocol launch.

You might be a B2B software company, but if you’re issuing a token, you’re now also a B2C startup targeting a retail audience.

The market is brutally efficient:

If your community is hollow, your tokenomics are weak, your utility is incomplete, or your go-to-market strategy is inconsistent, these will be exposed within minutes of listing. You only get one chance to launch your token—don’t screw it up.

This checklist outlines the core elements that determine whether a project joins the top 15% of sustainable ventures or becomes just another chart that only goes down.

Community & Mindshare Building

Before TGE, market hype is liquidity.

Winners spend weeks building sustainable, credible mindshare, while losers try to generate hype in the last 72 hours.

Your goal: be everywhere, be consistent, and don’t come off as forced.

Craft a Story Anyone Can Understand

Your business has two very different target audiences: people who use your product and people who will buy your token. To connect with them, ditch the jargon and start with the basics:

Why does your project matter?

Who does it matter to?

What is the core message?

How do you plan to spread this message?

Once the core message is set, repeat your story and user stories again and again. A great product is meaningless if you can’t explain it simply; consistency and clarity are the only way to win attention. If you’re a technical founder and not good at messaging, hire someone who is. The success of your token launch depends on it.

Sustainable Mindshare (2-3 Months Pre-TGE)

Top projects maintain a steady, organic presence for at least 2 to 3 months before a token sale or TGE event.

No sudden negative events

No disappearing acts

No abrupt major announcements

Zero bot activity and fake hype

Nothing kills credibility faster than your follower count jumping from 20,000 to 60,000 overnight.

Use TweetScout or Moni Discover to audit your own social media.

Check for inorganic engagement from partner KOLs. Red flags include huge follower counts but low impressions and engagement rates, sudden activity spikes followed by silence, repetitive replies, and no mutual followers. Use tools like Kaito or Cookie3 to check credibility.

Avoid giveaway events, bot-manipulated tasks, or mandatory “follow-to-earn” activities.

If your audience looks fake, your TGE won’t feel real either. Exchanges and investors will look at your data, but they won’t be fooled by vanity metrics.

Pre-TGE Sentiment & Community Engagement

Poor market sentiment can destroy your launch even before your token lists, but artificially positive vibes are just as harmful.

Use Kaito, Lunarcrush, or Santiment to track sentiment.

Sentiment that’s too good is as suspicious as sentiment that’s too bad.

When working with KOLs, ensure their reviews feel organic and fair.

Filter influencers based on real engagement, not just follower counts.

If a KOL can highlight both pros and cons of your approach, that’s better than traditional one-sided shilling.

Track the percentage of users generating UGC (memes, threads, fan art, dashboards).

A healthy ecosystem should show 5-10% active creators, not just responders.

Start building credibility with educational content, then shift to conversion-focused messaging as momentum grows.

Activate top KOLs across regions and languages, including English, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and Spanish.

Discord / Telegram Health Check

Silent groups = silent TGE. Community activity must be visible.

Measure DAU (Daily Active Users)

Healthy range: 10-20% of total group members

Below 8% means you’re running a “ghost town” pre-launch

A strong GTM (Go-to-Market) strategy determines whether your token launch explodes or fizzles out after 48 hours.

Ramp Up BizDev Efforts as Launch Approaches

Integrating with other crypto projects is a huge growth channel and can generate market attention pre-launch.

In many ways, it’s easier to form partnerships with other projects, exchanges, and market makers before you have a circulating token. Once you have a token with transparent metrics and revenue, it’s never enough.

Partner with projects that have similar user bases or target markets so you can leverage their communities and hype.

Accept any high-quality joint Twitter Spaces, social media promotions, or offline events. Squeeze maximum value from every partnership.

Never go silent post-launch.

Silence kills momentum faster than selling pressure.

Failure to provide demand drivers post-TGE → token dumps.

Failure to communicate post-TGE incentives → token dumps.

Failure to roll out a series of strong partnerships/product launches → token dumps.

And nothing kills user acquisition faster than a chart that only goes down.

Tokenomics & Economic Design

Token launch failures are usually not due to “bad marketing.”

They fail because supply crushes demand.

A successful token launch (success = long-term potential) is 20% hype, 80% economic engineering.

Below is a pre-TGE tokenomics checklist every serious team must pass before going live.

Note: I won’t cover the basics of lockups/vesting/internal locks here, but rather highlight often-overlooked categories.

Baseline Requirements (Non-Negotiable)

These are the basics that separate legitimate launches from amateur ones:

Full transparency: no hidden allocations, no “TBA” lockups, no incomplete vesting charts.

Minimized sell pressure: airdrops should vest over time; early buyers shouldn’t exit immediately; FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) shouldn’t punish retail. The terms you offer your community in the sale should be equal to (if not better than) those you gave VCs and insiders in the last round.

If you’re not meeting these two points, you’re not ready for TGE.

Token Claim Mechanism

If everyone can immediately claim 100% (especially in the case of airdrops or ultra-low FDV public sales), you’ll get a massive liquidity event + no reason to hold.

What to do:

Use tiered claim options, such as:

Option A: Claim 100% now, but at an unfavorable FDV (e.g., at a low 2x valuation).

Option B: Claim 25% now, 75% over 6-12 months, but at a higher, more favorable FDV.

This forces users to choose between liquidity and loyalty, stabilizing early trading.

Governance is Not Utility

A token with only governance function = zero natural demand. No reason to buy, no reason to hold.

Ensure your token has real, structural utility:

Staking for protocol revenue

Fee discounts or rebates

Access to premium features

Buyback and burn funded by revenue

Collateral use within the ecosystem

Required for node operation/network security

Utility should be directly tied to protocol usage.

Also, if tokens only flow out without returning, it leads to price inflation and value erosion.

Consider ongoing deflationary mechanisms, such as:

Burning a percentage of each transaction (0.5-1%)

Protocol revenue buyback and burn

Burning unclaimed rewards

Burns during redemption/minting operations

Without deflationary mechanisms, inflation will worsen, and you should be able to offset it.

Demand-driving utility should be live at TGE

There are countless tokens in the market slowly going to zero because teams rushed to launch before releasing products that actually required the token.

If you’re not live yet, delay TGE.

If your mainnet isn’t launching on the same day as your token, delay TGE.

You don’t get a second chance here—don’t screw it up.

Product

This article mainly discusses marketing and tokenomics, but there’s one critical part you can’t ignore: product-market fit.

If your product doesn’t need a token to work, prioritize utility first. Launching a token too early distorts user behavior, locks in flawed assumptions, and masks deeper product problems. While incentives may drive short-term growth, they can’t fix a product that fails to resonate.

I’ve seen this over and over: token launches attract a flood of users, but without utility, engagement drops off as soon as incentives disappear. Tokens are most effective when layered on top of a product already delivering value.

My View: The Key Difference Between Winners and Losers

Winners:

Organic communities, not bought followers

Real market demand before the token

Transparent tokenomics

Post-TGE momentum plans

A token with actual use

Losers:

Hype-driven stories

Hidden unlocks and suspicious vesting

Tokens with no use case

No communication after listing

Teams that treat TGE as the finish line

A TGE is not a celebration, but the start of a stress test.

The market is unforgiving.

You can spend months building hype, but a single mistake—hidden unlocks, incomplete utility, fake followers, or a dead community—can erase everything in minutes.