Governance That
Actually Makes Sense
A decentralised launchpad rebuilt around the four operating principles its competitors got wrong.
"Launchpads usually ship as marketing pages with a buy button. We built DEXDock the other way around. The product is the pitch."
01 — The Context
By 2023, the dominant launchpads had calcified around the same set of problems. Opaque project selection. Heavy upfront fees that punished early teams. Single-chain limits that closed off half the market. Sale mechanics built for the launchpad operator, not the projects raising or the backers participating.
DAO Maker, Polkastarter, and Seedify had all earned their position. None of them was solving the next set of problems. DEXDock came with a clear thesis: pick the operating principles competitors got wrong, rebuild from scratch, and let the product do the convincing.
Settlement
Cardano — low fees, formal verification
Governance
DAO-curated listings, not operator picks
Sale Models
Four mechanics instead of one
Fee Model
Zero upfront, 5% on funds raised
02 — The Bet
The product had to communicate institutional credibility
before a wallet ever connected.
— 01
Four products, one shell
We treated LBP, Fixed Price, Tiered, and Overflow as four distinct products — not variants of a single flow. Each has its own pricing logic, eligibility surface, and lifecycle moment. Hiding them behind a generic checkout would have killed the value prop on contact.
— 02
Governance as product surface
DAO governance moved from buried Discord poll to a first-class product surface. If the listing decision is the trust anchor, the listing decision had to be visible.
— 03
Cross-chain that feels boring
Multi-chain is a selling point until users have to think about which chain they're on. At that point it becomes a tax. Our job was to absorb that complexity entirely.
03 — My Role
Product Director and Design Lead
Listing Flow
Owned end to end — from project readiness checks through DAO voting through final fundraise.
Four Sale UIs
Designed and shipped each model with its own interaction model, eligibility rules, pricing curves, and edge-case handling.
DAO Governance Surface
Built the governance surface and the investor onboarding loop from cold visit to KYC-verified participant.
Cross-Chain UX
Shaped from the architecture brief down to the final transaction-confirmation screens.
Design System
Designed and maintained the system that holds all of it together across every sale mechanic and governance flow.
Engineering Team
Managed the engineering team through delivery.
04 — The Build
The Four Sale Models
Each mechanic built as its own product — not a variant of a single flow.
Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool
For early-stage projects that need price discovery without bots. A live, decaying price curve lets backers decide when to enter, not just whether.
The UI surfaces the curve in real time. Backers see where the market is pulling the token before committing. Anti-bot mechanics are structural, not layered on top.
Fixed Price
The simplest mechanic and got the simplest treatment, intentionally. One price, clear allocation, no complexity surface for its own sake.
Fixed Price was given restraint — a single clean commit flow with no eligibility ladders. Complexity was earned elsewhere.
Tiered
Surfaces a backer's eligibility upfront based on stake or community contribution. The tier ladder is visible before commit, not after.
Backers can see their tier, understand what changes it, and decide whether to adjust before they commit.
Overflow
Lets demand exceed supply and pro-rates the fill. A live oversubscription counter shows exactly what the final allocation looks like.
Participants see the oversubscription multiple in real time and can model their allocation before the sale closes.
DAO Governance as a Product Surface
The six-step listing process rendered as a public pipeline. Anyone can see where a project sits, how it got there, and how the community voted. This converts governance from theatre into a trust artifact.
Project Readiness
Technical and legal checks before the proposal enters the queue.
Proposal
Team submits a structured brief — tokenomics, roadmap, raise target.
Vote
DAO token holders vote on-chain. Snapshot-style, auditable.
Community Engagement
AMA period. The project earns its listing.
Final Decision
Threshold reached or missed. Transparent outcome, on-chain record.
Listing
Sale mechanics chosen, dates set, fundraise opens.
"DAO governance moved from buried Discord poll to a first-class product surface. If the listing decision is the trust anchor, the listing decision had to be visible."
05 — Tech & Stack
06 — The Result
1,000+
VC & Angel Network
4
Sale Models Shipped
6-Stage
Governance Pipeline
5%
Fee on Raised Funds
What the numbers don't show: a launchpad that competes on principles instead of promotion. The four sale models gave projects a real reason to pick DEXDock over a Polkastarter. The DAO surface gave backers a reason to trust the listings without taking the team's word for it. The fee structure made the choice obvious for early-stage teams who couldn't afford the alternatives.
07 — What It Unlocked
DEXDock proved that the next generation of launchpads doesn't compete on prize pools or influencer reach. It competes on whether the underlying product behaves like infrastructure or like a press release.
The work changed how we think about Web3 product design at Luvon. The cleanest UI in a token launch isn't the one with the least friction. It's the one that makes the trade-offs visible enough that a backer can actually decide.
Design System
The four sale model system has become the foundation for adjacent fundraising surfaces inside the same ecosystem.
Governance Pattern
The DAO governance UI pattern is being reused across projects that need transparent listing or decision surfaces.
Cross-Chain Layer
The settlement abstraction is the part nobody saw, and the part everything else rests on.
"Four sale mechanics, treated as four distinct products. Hiding them behind a generic flow would have killed the value prop on contact."
"Multi-chain is a selling point until users have to think about which chain they're on, at which point it becomes a tax."
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