CEX Listing Strategy Guide for Founders' Required Course

Author: Ash

Compiled by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor’s Note: Token listings have always been one of the most concerning events for various projects in the cryptocurrency industry, as they often mean more liquidity, more holders, and a more active trading market. However, as Haseeb, managing partner at Dragonfly, stated, "Many founders try to launch tokens during a bull market, but these tokens ultimately still have to go through a bear market." Therefore, whether in a bull or bear market, the preparation work before listing is naturally better when more thorough.

This article compiles the CEX listing strategy manual shared by Signum Capital investor Ash (with minor modifications) for the reference of cryptocurrency project founders.

CEX Listing: A "Shared Task" for Investors and Founders

Note: This manual is specifically aimed at founders planning to launch tokens and prepare for listings in the near future.

Typically, when investors discuss the appreciation of their portfolios, they should not only introduce projects to other venture capital firms and angel investors for financing but also genuinely work with founders to develop a successful strategy, one of the key focuses being the realization of token listings on centralized exchanges (CEX).

This token listing guide is mainly divided into the following five parts:

1. Token Listing Documents

2. Business Negotiations with CEX and Market Makers

3. Community and Social Media Promotion

4. Media Coverage

5. Other Preparations

Before diving into the main content, it is crucial to remind founders that preparing a solid financing plan before launching a token strategy is essential.

A project founder preparing for a listing should at least ensure the following matters have been adequately addressed:

• Reserve a certain budget for token listing (usually higher fees during bull markets) and market makers (reserved shares);

• Develop a strategy to achieve financing from large CEX venture capital departments (such as Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures), as this can increase listing opportunities;

• Establish strong connections with venture capital firms and angel investors that have a robust network in the industry.

Five Steps for CEX Listing

Specifically, the steps for CEX token listing include:

Step 1: Prepare Token Listing Documents

To ensure the smooth issuance and listing of tokens, a cryptocurrency project needs to prepare several documents in advance, which are the main requirements for CEX listings:

• White Paper: The main content includes a detailed description of the project’s vision and mission, protocol mechanism, team, and roadmap.

• Token Economic Model: Includes a detailed introduction to the token, main use cases, vesting schedule, and long-term allocation information.

• Protocol Security and Token Audit: Conducted by trusted auditing providers or security firms.

• Legal Documents: Legal documents regarding the operating entity behind the project and legal opinions from industry lawyers.

• Investment and Financing Documents: Recent valuation and equity structure tables, etc.

• CEX Listing Forms: Complete the token listing forms unique to each CEX, usually including company registration information, financial data, team information, token economic model, protocol mechanism, community and project impact description, and legal documents.

Step 2: Business Negotiations with CEX and Market Makers

1. Centralized Exchanges (CEX)

• Listing Fees: Each CEX listing involves listing fees, typically ranging from $200,000 to $500,000 (sometimes more) or requiring 5%-20% of the total token supply.

• Additional Fees: Listing projects may also need to pay technical fees (such as project audits, token integration), marketing fees, and a certain amount of deposit.

• Partnerships and Multiple Exchange Listings: Establishing partnerships with exchanges and applying for listings on multiple CEXs can increase the chances of success to some extent and aid in negotiation. Additionally, collaborating with major CEXs' DeFi wallets for marketing promotion is also beneficial.

2. Market Makers

For projects looking to list, bringing in market makers is necessary—they can help maintain price stability for the project’s tokens and ensure healthy liquidity.

Market makers are generally divided into two categories:

• The first type uses a "Loan + Option Model": market makers borrow tokens from the project to provide liquidity to the market and are granted subscription options.

• The second type uses a "Retainer Fee + Profit Sharing Model": the project pays market makers a related market-making fee each month to ensure token liquidity.

@0xLouisT and @minjung_eth have conducted relevant research on market makers, and the following content can be referenced:

• https://x.com/0xLouisT/status/1808489954869133497 …

• https://prestolabs.io/research/market-making-predatory-or-essential…

Step 3: Community and Social Media Promotion

For a cryptocurrency project, building a strong and active community is crucial. Here are some suggestions:

• Social Media Trinity: Stay active on Discord, Telegram/WeChat, and X (Twitter);

• Community Management: Hire excellent community managers to manage Discord and Telegram groups, and drive partnerships and localization strategies through ecosystem and business development leaders.

• Active Participation with Multiple Accounts: Ensure users are informed about project developments through the main project account and founder accounts, and promote products reasonably. If preparing dedicated intern accounts or meme accounts to gain maximum attention, marketing effectiveness will be better.

• Flexibly Use Task Platforms: Use task platforms like Galxe, Zealy, and Layer 3 to achieve community growth and development.

• Make Good Use of Airdrops: Airdrop rewards to core users to enhance their loyalty (although the increasing number of bot scripts and fake accounts makes this strategy more challenging to implement).

Step 4: Media Coverage

For project teams, an integrated marketing plan is very necessary, as it can ensure that information coverage is comprehensive from almost all angles:

• Industry Media: Publish on major cryptocurrency news portals, such as @TheBlock , @Foresight_News, @BlockBeatsAsia, @PANewsCN.

• KOL Promotion: Seek paid promotional collaborations with KOLs or provide investment opportunities at lower valuations in exchange for marketing exposure (such as articles, videos, and self-media channel promotions).

• Marketing Agencies: Collaborate with top marketing agencies to develop professional and comprehensive marketing strategies. Here are some partners Ash has previously worked with, such as @cryptofreedman and @snow949494 from @hypepartners, @JiraiyaReal from @Tailored Web3, and @ciaobelindazhou from @ShardDXB, etc.

• Research Articles: Publish in-depth research articles through companies with a certain reputation in the industry to enhance project recognition. Examples include @DelphiDigital, @MessariCrypto, @blockworksres, @IanUnsworth, @kairosres, @Steve4P, @FourPillarsFP, @blocmatesdotcom, @asxn_r, @Shoalresearch.

Step 5: Other Preparations

As a qualified cryptocurrency project team, founders need to ensure that the project’s tokens can be listed on major industry platforms and seen by more people, including:

• CoinGecko/CoinMarketCap: Token listing.

• Dexscreener: Token information aggregation display.

• DefiLlama: Project listing.

• Dune Analytics: A dashboard platform displaying on-chain metrics and user analysis.

• DeBank: Obtain protocol support.

• Token Terminal: Data partners.

Finally, I want to emphasize that each token issuance has its uniqueness, and a one-size-fits-all standardized approach usually does not work. Successful token issuance and listing involve far more than what has been mentioned here—the information shared today is just the tip of the iceberg.

In conclusion, I would like to borrow a phrase from the closing words of National Geographic's magazine—Stay Humble, Stay Foolish.