Goblintown Heads to the Trenches With Solana Meme Coin Launch

Ethereum NFT collection Goblintown is looking to shake up the meme coin market, dropping its own meme coin—GOB—on the Solana blockchain with a new token model designed to refresh the meme coin experience. 

The token, which was launched in stealth late Tuesday by Truth Arts’ wholly owned subsidiary Exploding Goblin LLC, aims to solve the longevity issues of new meme coins with a multi-pronged approach that Goblintown co-founder Alex Taub says is the product of studying other launches from the trenches.

“In the past 6 months, we’ve been sort of noodling on: What would a meme coin look like if you threw everything in the garbage and you rethought what the token design looked like?” Taub told Decrypt. “No one needs another meme coin, but they want one that works… and that’s the attempt here.”

That means fixing a few core issues that other projects have faced when launching a token for their community—like concerns around token vesting, launching with goals of high valuations or market caps, dealing with snipers, and managing liquidity.

“We’re attempting to make it really attractive in and outside the community to want to accumulate [GOB]—basically doing the opposite of every other NFT project,” Taub said.

To start, the project will vest its GOB token to the individual NFTs from the Truth Arts ecosystem—the parent company for Goblintown and its companion collections—not the wallet address that holds them. In other words, the GOB token allocation is set aside for the current NFT holder, not the wallet address that held it during an arbitrary snapshot date.

Additionally, instead of granting a fully vested allotment of tokens to NFT holders, GOB will vest every second over the course of 24 months, with claims available weekly. (Company and team members have a 30-month vest, with a six-month cliff.)

And that allotment is not designed to be an immediate exit point for holders, as Goblintown aims to launch small—or with a low market cap and tight circulating supply—as opposed to other token launches which may seek to launch with higher market caps and token supplies, offering their communities a strong day one stimulus and exit point.

Launch mechanics for other recent meme coins have created “misaligned incentives” between the community and the project, according to Taub, who said that they can seem to be designed “to be done day one.” 

“If I’m holding it, I’m sort of a sucker,” said Taub of launches that pair high valuations with a fully vested allocation on day one. “We’re trying to take the reverse approach.” 

Beyond the token allocations, Taub indicated that Goblintown will be doing its best to deal with snipers, a problem that has plagued Solana meme coins, allowing individuals or bots to snag a coin and create lots of sell pressure shortly after launch.

To do so, GOB launched in stealth without a pre-announcement, and directly via the Goblintown community to start. That—coupled with the small percentage of tokens available on day one—isn’t a perfect solution, but “should get us most of the way there,” the project’s GOB Green Paper reads. 

Last but not least, the project will address what it calls the “silent killer”—poor liquidity management—by implementing a 2.5% token tax designed to replenish the liquidity pool, help with operations and marketing, and create a deflationary flywheel with buybacks and burns. In other words, with every transaction a small tax or “fee” will be redirected to the team to support the future of the token. 

“We realized the solution is just a smart and balanced token tax that just gets reinvested back into the token,” Taub said, highlighting the innovation and early success of other token tax examples like that of Safemoon—“before all the crime,” he joked.

Individually, each component of the GOB token design has been implemented before elsewhere. But Taub and team think this combination will help sustain their token.

“People have done vesting before, people have done token taxes before, they’ve done things to try and elbow out snipers,” he said. “They just haven’t ever been all put together, specifically for a meme coin for an NFT project.”

“We think the market is sort of dying for and hungry for a new token design,” Taub continued. “That’s not a guarantee that it’s going to work, but if you can figure out a better design than what people are currently doing and get the demand, it could work.”

Goblintown burst onto the scene in 2022 following a plunge in NFT demand, turning a free mint on Ethereum with no utility, roadmap, or Discord into a pricey collection with a rabid, urine-obsessed community, using fun marketing gimmicks and the absurdity of the collection to spread the brand. It has since expanded into gaming, as well.

It’ll use some of those tactics once more, launching with a TikTok filter called “Sell the Top” to promote the brand, and Telescram, a real hotline encouraging callers to leave detailed messages with love or hate for the token. 

“We just think this at least has potential,” said Taub. “It could die because nobody cares about it; it’s an attention game. But at least we’re giving it a punter’s chance.”