Morning Minute: Coinbase Leans in to ICOs, Monad Up First

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall overnight; BTC -1% at $104,800
• Coinbase unveils Coinbase Token Sales ICO platform, will host MON sale
• Monad shared tokenomics and public sale details for MON ($2.5B fdv)
• Uniswap plans to turn fee switch on, burn 100M UNI tokens (UNI +20%)
• US Treasury and IRS issue guidance to make staking easier for ETFs

🚀 Coinbase Unveils Its Own Token Launchpad, With Monad Up First

And Monad stands to benefit first.

📌 What Happened

Coinbase just unveiled a new “Coinbase Token Sales” platform as a regulated, transparent way for retail users to buy new tokens directly through the app.

This is Coinbase effectively reintroducing public token launches to U.S. retail for the first time since the 2017 ICO boom.

TLDR:

• The platform will host monthly sales, starting with Monad’s MON token from Nov. 17–22
• Users can submit purchase requests in USDC during a one-week window, with allocations determined by a “bottom-up” algorithm that fills smaller orders first to maximize distribution.
• Tokens purchased will automatically be listed on Coinbase after the sale, giving projects immediate liquidity and visibility.
• Users who sell within the first 30 days of token launch are likely to be penalized for future distributions.

This all comes after acquiring Cobie’s Echo platform for $400M just a month ago.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“We designed token sales to be the ideal way to launch – transparent, fair, and compliant.” – Coinbase blog

“This is the first broad-based, retail-accessible token sale in the U.S. since 2018.” – Company statement

“We’re excited to make MON our first listing, bringing Monad’s high-throughput tech to millions of new users.” – Coinbase announcement

🧠 Why It Matters

This is a clear signal that ICOs (initial coin offerings) are fully coming back to the crypto space.

Expect every major protocol and/or app to do some kind of ICO for the foreseeable future.

And it likely comes at the expense of airdrops.

Giving tokens to buyers via ICO just makes more sense than giving them to users for free via airdrops.

Both are a form of community creation, but one comes with skin in the game and one does not.

Monad is the perfect example. They set aside 3.3% of the token supply for the airdrop (generously spread across CT) and 7.5% for their token sale.

Thus there is still a component of “free money” for lucky airdrop recipients, along with a path for investors to put up capital and capture the upside of Monad’s launch.

Expect this to be the new norm.

And expect more and more teams to try to go through Coinbase’s Token Sales platform at launch as a de facto “stamp of approval” from one of the biggest players in the space.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mostly red along with majors; DOGE -3%, Shiba -2%, PEPE -3%, PENGU -3%, BONK -3%, TRUMP -3%, SPX -7%, and FARTCOIN -10%
• WOJAK (+100%) to $5.6M was a top Solana mover; 401jk (+63%) and Pumpcade (+32%) were other top movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly red across the board; Punks -1% at 35 ETH, Pudgy -3% at 5.9, BAYC +2% at 6.4 ETH; Hypurr’s -4% at 860 HYPE
• Kodas (+7%) were a notable top mover
• Moonbirds opened a merch store with an initial capsule collections