GUIDE
How to evaluate a new coin launch in fifteen minutes
A short checklist for new tokens: supply and unlocks, who is funded, what it does that an existing chain cannot, and what happens if the team leaves.
Quick answer
Check the unlock schedule, who holds the supply, whether the project does something an existing chain cannot, and whether it survives the team walking away. Most launches fail at least two of those.
The base rate for new tokens is poor, and by the time you are reading about one you are usually being sold something. This checklist takes about a quarter of an hour and filters most of them.
1. Who holds the supply, and when does it move?
Find the allocation table and the unlock schedule. Both are normally published, and almost nobody reads them. What you are looking for is the share held by insiders and the dates it becomes sellable. A token with sixty per cent allocated to team and investors, unlocking over eighteen months, has a structural seller for eighteen months. That is not a prediction, it is a schedule.
2. What does it do that an existing chain cannot?
Ask it plainly and refuse to accept a vague answer. A great many launches are an existing idea with its own token attached, where the token exists to be sold rather than because the system needs one. That is not automatically fatal, but it should change what you are willing to pay.
3. Who is funding it?
Named investors with reputations are a real signal — not that the project will succeed, but that someone did diligence and attached their name. Anonymous funding with large allocations is the opposite.
4. What happens if the team walks away?
If the chain stops producing blocks, the website is the product, or the contract can be upgraded unilaterally, then you are holding an instrument backed by a company’s continued goodwill. Price it that way.
5. Where does it trade?
Thin liquidity on one venue means the quoted price is close to meaningless for any size. Check the actual order book depth, not just the headline volume, which is easy to inflate.
What this checklist will not tell you
Whether the price goes up. Plenty of projects that fail every item here have risen a long way, and plenty that pass have gone to nothing. The checklist tells you what you are holding and what the structural pressures on it are. That is a different and more answerable question.
Key takeaways
- Published unlock schedules are the most useful and least read document in a launch.
- "What does this do that Ethereum cannot" has a real answer surprisingly rarely.
- If the project stops working when the team stops working, it is a company, not a protocol.
Risk notice
Cryptocurrency prices are volatile and you can lose the full value of a position. Nothing here is a price prediction or a recommendation to buy or sell. Do your own research.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I find an unlock schedule?
Usually in the project documentation or a tokenomics page, and several third-party trackers aggregate them. If a project has not published one, treat that as the answer to the question.
Is a large insider allocation always bad?
Not always — building takes funding. What matters is the size, the vesting period and whether it is disclosed clearly.
Sources
