Token Sale Shakeup: 10 New Trends for 2026

The token sale market in the 2026 era will undergo significant transformations, from continuous clearing auction mechanisms and integrated exchange launch platforms to capability-based distribution systems. Institutional-grade sales and community-first models will serve different market needs, with compliance becoming a competitive barrier. This article is based on a piece by Stacy Muur, organized, translated, and written by Deep潮 TechFlow. (Previous highlight: Why ICOs Are Reclaiming Dominance in On-Chain Fundraising? The Three Core Logics That Beat Airdrops) (Background addition: Bitwise CIO: Compliant ICOs Will Be the Core Narrative of 2026 and the “Fourth Pillar” of Cryptocurrency Disruption of Traditional Finance) In 2026, token sale analysis has become one of my key pillars. Last year, I launched the Muur Score—a framework for evaluating protocols before a token generation event (TGE)—and published in-depth analyses of the largest sales in 2025, including Flying Tulip, YieldBasis, Almanak, Lombard, Falcon, and others. By mid-October 2025, the trend in token sales was already very clear. Issues of issuance on @buidlpad, @echodotxyz, @legiondotcc, @MetaDAOProject, @BinanceWallet, @CoinList, and @MEXC_Official—both in participation and post-TGE ROI—continued to perform strongly. Despite the retail market regaining attention, it is more associated with “gamblers” than “investors.” In this report, I combine my firsthand research with forecasts from the @legiondotcc, @CoinList, @Chain_GPT, and @impossiblefi teams. The goal is clear: to describe the actual development trends of token sales in 2026, rather than pretend everything will only “continue upward.” 2026 Token Sale Predictions 1. Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA) Moving from Niche to Mainstream The CCA (Continuous Clearing Auctions), via Aztec’s fully diluted valuation of $2.8 billion (FDV) through public sales, demonstrates that transparent, non-custodial on-chain price discovery mechanisms can operate at scale. It is expected that 15-20 major projects will adopt similar mechanisms. CCA directly addresses issues such as: The cycle of accusations of “manipulated allocation”; Black-box operations of offline order books; Reputation issues similar to Monad’s FUD during Coinbase sales (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). A broader theme is: Price discovery will shift from centralized exchanges to public infrastructure. 2. Exchange-Integrated Launch Platforms Market share consolidation The partnership between Kraken and Legion, along with Coinbase’s $375 million acquisition of Echo, indicates market development directions. Binance, OKX, and Bybit are almost certain to be the next participants. Expected: 60%-70% of top-tier sales will occur simultaneously on exchange-native platforms and independent launch platforms; Two-tier systems will form: A Tier: Supported by exchanges, high liquidity, institutional allocations; B Tier: Independent platforms pursuing community-driven sales. This trend favors distribution but is less friendly for those wanting to run small launch platforms in their garages. “Recent M&A activities show a clear direction: more platforms will integrate token sales into broader user acquisition channels. We will see an increase in vertically integrated ‘island’ models, but more interestingly, the rise of global distribution networks. Imagine a cross-regional ecosystem covering exchanges, partners, and channels. For example, Legion + Kraken + the upcoming collaboration with an Asian centralized exchange (CEX) partner—offering a cross-chain, platform-neutral global token distribution model—will become the norm.” —@matty_, Founder of Legion @legiondotcc 3. Capability-Based Allocation Replaces First-Come, First-Served The (FCFS) model has essentially “died,” as bot armies have thoroughly destroyed its fairness. Legion’s ability-based scoring (Engagement, Reputation, Values Alignment) is becoming an industry template. Other platforms will also introduce mechanisms such as: On-chain historical records; Long-term participation data; Social graph scoring. While this reduces the risk of Sybil attacks (Sybil attack) to some extent, it also introduces new risks: systems similar to “cryptocurrency credit scoring” will reward early adopters, placing newcomers at a disadvantage. Fairer but absolutely unequal. “By 2026, the token sale market will polarize around two dominant models: fully compliant professional launch platforms and permissionless ‘meme’ launch platforms. Medium-sized, vaguely positioned platforms will struggle, as distribution capacity becomes a key competitive advantage—project teams will prefer platforms capable of reliably bringing in real users, liquidity, and secondary market support.” —@0xr100, Chief Marketing Officer of Impossible Finance @impossiblefi 4. Institutional Allocations Will Become Standard As traditional finance further penetrates the tokenization space, token sale structures will formally introduce institutional allocation mechanisms, including: 20%-30% quotas; 12-24 month lock-up periods; Structured book-building processes. This can be seen as a “lightweight on-chain IPO.” Platforms like Legion are positioning themselves as underwriters for the crypto industry, and by 2026, this positioning will become industry standard. “We will see further integration of launch platforms with centralized exchanges (CEX), with specialized launch platforms evolving into modular infrastructure providers, offering KYC (identity verification), audited sale contracts, and embeddable sale widgets for projects to host on their own websites. Meanwhile, anti-Sybil attack filters based on on-chain and social data will become standard, and lockdrop (lockdrop) distributions will continue to be a core mechanism drawing attention.” —@0xr100, Chief Marketing Officer of Impossible Finance @impossiblefi 5. Multi-Platform Launches Will Become the Norm for Top Projects WalletConnect, through simultaneous fundraising of $10 million on CoinList, Bitget Launch X, and Echo, sets a benchmark for multi-platform issuance. For large projects: simultaneous launches on 3-5 platforms will become standard; distribution efficiency will improve; concentration risk will decrease; coordination difficulty will increase (But this is a problem for project teams, not yours). “I believe project teams will increasingly choose different launch platforms based on their needs and often collaborate with multiple platforms simultaneously…