LFG Launchpad Voting Will Start Next Week! Besides the airdrop and launchpool mechanisms, LFG is also pioneering a launchpad process where the community takes a leading role in discussing, vetting, voting and performing post-launch analysis together. Since applications begun a couple of weeks ago, more than 20 great teams have applied via public introduction posts on the forum. Many have received strong support and feedback from the Jupiter community and even seeing strong growth as a result. jupresear.ch/c/lfg-intros Based on factors including community sentiment, project readiness for TGE, and due diligence, the Core Work Group (CWG) has introduced 6 of these projects more intimately to the community via dedicated Discord forum posts and AMA sessions. And today, we are happy to share that we are ready to kick off DAO voting for next week for the first batch of LFG launches! First LFG DAO Vote During the week of March 4th, the Jupiter DAO will vote on the first 2 projects to be launched from a technical maximum of 10 projects. The launch window for these projects will be between late March to mid April. The CWG will aim to provide the voters with crucial succinct information from community feedback and AMA, to assist in decision-making by the DAO. Key Notes: - This will be a token-weighted vote in which DAO participants pick their favorite option from a list of candidates - The 2 projects that receive the most votes are considered to be formally ‘approved by the DAO’, with the #1 project having priority in choosing their launch date. - If a project is not in the top 2, it is not a rejection. They can participate in future votes - Between launches, there will be a minimum 2 week gap Given that this will be the first-ever LFG vote, some aspects will change with time based on community feedback to ensure we progress towards a more solidified process. Design Goals 1. Voting: The 2 slots per month forces the DAO to pick the projects that they really want, rather than voting for everything to earn tokens. 2. Incentives: While the exact distribution mechanism has not been decided, 75% of launchpad fees (including the 100M JUP from the JUP launch) will be distributed to voters to increase turnout. 3. Alignment: The voting incentives will not be distributed immediately, likely with a minimum vesting period of 3-6 months. There are 3 key reasons behind this: - It builds greater alignment between the Jupiter community and the project for months post launch - Voters will vote based on what is likely to generate value over time and have the most long-term potential - It will not increase the immediate circulating supply, a major concern for projects 4. Timing: There are multiple stakeholders involved, such as the projects, team and the voters. Timing has to be taken into account to ensure that projects are given sufficient headsup to plan their LFG launch, or find alternatives. Voters require sufficient time to deliberate and review, and launches have to be spaced out sufficiently to maximize impact and minimize fatigue. 5. Transparency: Transparency has been a key priority from day 1. The launchpad applications are transparent to everyone on the Jupiter research forum allowing for community impact instead of other traditionally closed processes. CWG as Facilitators The Core Working Group will not focus on evaluation, but rather ensure that important community feedback is effectively presented to the project(s). Instead of forcing every community member to exhaustively evaluate each project from start to finish, the CWG works synergistically with the DAO to present them with high-density information. This includes the AMAs, which are the culmination of everything talked about up until that point, and the introduction process, which moves a project to the ‘candidacy’ stage. This ensures that the DAO is able to make informed decisions, while everyone still has access to all the raw data. The CWG has the right to decide not to hold any votes in the extreme case that they feel there are no suitable candidates at the time, and will openly address these concerns within a town hall to the community. Lastly, while the CWG ran the important process of deciding which projects to introduce at a deeper level so far, moving forward it will likely be a much more collaborative process with the catdets taking on a key role in terms of who they want to hear from next. By co-creating these processes with the community, we stay in tune with the catdets and receive critical feedback about how to best mold them over time. Like a living organism has individual cells, we grow and we do so together as a whole. JUP DAO One crucial part of making this work is that JUP is highly distributed, sufficiently valuable, very liquid, and, most importantly, has no insider voting blocs. Along with the fact that voting is incentivized to gather sufficient interest, we believe that it will be difficult for any single party to swing the vote towards any one participant. LFG: A Pragmatic, Optimistic Experiment At Breakpoint 2023, we discussed the Jupiter launchpad as a much needed approach to ‘grow the pie’ by giving great projects exposure, funding, and community support. 4 months in, and after many public trials of fire later, I am delighted that we are finally ready to move to next affirmative step of helping great projects launch too. At its core, LFG is a pragmatic but ultimately optimistic experiment. The pessimistic view is that community decision making is short sighted, that they will vote for whatever benefits them in the short term without consideration for long-term ecosystem health, and that most will not read or will seek to blame rather than learn. We prefer to take the other side of the argument. We believe that with well-designed incentives, iteratively evolved processes, and well-presented community-sourced data points, the community as a whole (users, catdets, DAO) can indeed make the best decisions, be supportive of projects, and, most importantly, learn together. Now let’s jump in, eyes wide open, and pioneer this shit together! Meow! PS: Big thanks to the following: 1) To the CWG - whose relentless and immensely inspiring desire to do well for the community and ecosystem got us to this point. They are also co-authors of this piece. - @kemos4be, @slorgoftheslugs, @c2yptic @durdenwannabe 🫡 2) To the amazing catdets - LFG is impossible without an extremely strong community, and the catdets have shown incredible support for the projects, processes, and team. 🐈 3) To the super patient projects - We know how important your token launch is to you, and we are super grateful to be part of the process. We will do everything we can to help you for long term success. 🙏 We are trying to make this the most transparent and hopefully effective launchpad possible for you, the ecosystem, and crypto. Thanks for joining us on this journey! ❤️