- Solana-based DEX HumidiFi will hold an initial coin offering in November.
- The exchange accounted for one-quarter of all trade volume on Solana over the past 30 days.
- The ICO will use Jupiter’s new launchpad, Decentralised Token Formation.
HumidiFi, by one measure the largest decentralised exchange on Solana, will launch a token in November via an initial coin offering.
That token, WET, will launch on Decentralised Token Formation, a platform developed by Jupiter, another Solana-based decentralised exchange.
HumidiFi has grown massively since its debut in May.
Over the past 30 days, the exchange has processed $33.3 billion in trade volume, more than any other competitor and almost one quarter of all trade volume on Solana, according to DefiLlama data.
HumidiFi is a so-called dark exchange, also known as a dark automated market maker or prop AMM.
Long-running decentralised exchanges such as Uniswap let users provide liquidity to earn swap fees.
Prop AMMs, however, rely solely on the liquidity provided by their creators. They are often able to outcompete conventional decentralised exchanges because they can actively manage their liquidity and better defend against malicious trading bots.
This lets prop AMMs offer traders cheaper prices on swaps, so exchange aggregators like Jupiter send more trades their way.
“These prop AMMs have been, arguably, the most significant change in onchain market microstructure that crypto has seen in years,” Kash Dhanda, Jupiter’s self-described “cat-herder,” said on a livestream in which he revealed HumidiFi’s upcoming ICO. (HumidiFi later confirmed the launch on X.)
“It is what allows people to trade onchain at size with prices that are, if not comparable, sometimes even better than what you can get on centralised exchanges.”
Dhanda said HumidiFi had not chosen an exact date for its ICO, but added the event would come in November.
WET will be the first token to use Jupiter’s Decentralised Token Formation platform, or DTF.
On the live stream, Jupiter attorney Yu Kheng Pek said DTF would offer tiered access to would-be investors.
First, the issuer of the token could whitelist certain recipients, such as employees and investors. Second, some tokens would be set aside for Jupiter stakers. Finally, the public would be able to invest at a set price on a first-come, first-served basis.
“This kind of goes back to the initial ICO days,” Yew said.
The attorney was critical of newer ICO models that cap investments. In the event deposits exceed the cap, issuers often distribute tokens on a pro-rata basis. But that system can be manipulated by deep-pocketed investors, according to Yew.
Whales who deposit an outsize sum at the last minute, exceeding the cap, know that most of their money will get refunded. But it still counts when measuring their pro-rata distribution, meaning they can secure an outsize share of the newly issued tokens.
“First-come first-served is still the fairest way to do allocations, in my view,” Yew said.
Jupiter’s DTF model distinguishes itself in other ways: Tokens sold to the public will begin trading on Meteora, a Jupiter-affiliated decentralised exchange, the moment the ICO ends. And tokens subject to vesting — such as those set aside for insiders — will be locked up onchain, preventing issuers from circumventing their own rules.
During the HumidiFi ICO, JUP stakers will have access to an exclusive pre-sale, according to Dhanda.
“If you have your JUP staked, you will be able to get in at a discounted price,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to do that for all DTF launches going forward.”
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. Got a tip? Email at aleks@dlnews.com.
