starling
Land
together.
A Starling flock buys inside the launch transaction itself. Everyone in it gets the same price, and nobody can be in front of you: the token does not exist yet.
38 seconds.
The first seconds belong to a few wallets.
We replayed 8,135 launches on Pons, trade by trade, over 4 days. In the first 30 seconds of a median launch, 3 wallets buy. The biggest takes 71% of those tokens, and 48% are gone within the first three seconds.
Every buyer who arrives later pays for what the first ones did to the price. The columns show how much, for buys of 0.005 to 0.05 ETH, against the very first price.
Median premium paid, by arrival time
A buyer 10 s late pays +41%. A flock of this size pays , once, together, whoever you are. Both include the curve fee and the creator tax. Source: 8,135 Pons launches, 4 days of Robinhood Chain.
One transaction. One price.
A creator opens a flock. People put ETH in. After the deadline anyone can call launch: the same transaction creates the token and buys the pool, at the start price, before anything else can touch it.
Open
The creator hashes the token details on chain, picks a deadline and a size (at most 0.25 ETH). Nothing is launched yet, nothing can be changed.
Join
Anyone deposits ETH. Order does not matter, and you can leave for free until the deadline. If there is too much demand, everybody is filled with the same fraction.
Launch
launch() creates the token and buys min(deposits, size) in one transaction. Bots cannot buy first: the token has not been created.
Claim
Each member claims tokens at the same price per ETH, plus the unfilled part of their deposit. No expiry, no fee of ours, no owner.
Start at the bottom of the curve.
On a Pons bonding curve the price cannot fall below where it started. A flock buys right there. If the token dies, the whole flock can sell back near that same price, and what it loses is the fees, not a crash.
average price paid, above the first price (fees and the flock's own impact)
lost if the token dies and the whole flock sells back
The curve's floor ends at graduation (4.2 ETH raised). Only 26 of 8,135 launches got there.
The real curve, the real start price
Price right after the flock: · share of supply bought: · you get back of what you put in if everyone sells at once.
You do not pick a winner. You stop overpaying for the start.
A flock holder who sells one hour later, on the 8,135 launches we replayed, against a buyer who arrived 10 seconds late.
Flock member, exit after one hour
| flock size | price paid | mean | median | lose >20% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.02 ETH | +4.0% | +4.2% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
| 0.05 ETH | +5.7% | +3.7% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
| 0.10 ETH | +8.6% | +2.9% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
| 0.15 ETH | +11.5% | +2.3% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
| 0.20 ETH | +14.4% | +1.8% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
| 0.25 ETH | +17.3% | +1.3% | -5.4% | 0.0% |
Median -5.4% is the fees: most launches go nowhere. The mean is positive because a few launches run. Fees here are the snapshot average, 2.75% per leg; the Lab uses the creator tax you choose.
The same launches, a buyer who arrives 10 s late
mean return after one hour (median -7.2%)
of those entries lose more than half
The flock is not magic: it removes the start premium and the worst tail. The Lab lets you set the size, the tax and your delay and replay every launch.
The honest list.
It does not pick good tokens
A flock buys a token that may go nowhere. The median outcome is the fees. Read the creator's page before you join, like you would before any buy.
It does not stop the creator selling
The creator can sell his own tokens later. The flock's floor is the curve, not a promise. The creator tax is capped at 5% and shown before you join.
It does not block bots after launch
Once the token exists, bots can buy it. They pay more than the flock did, and a 99% snipe tax hits them for the first three seconds. They just cannot be first.
The floor ends at graduation
Once a curve graduates to a Uniswap pool the floor is gone. That is 26 of 8,135 launches here, but it is the case where you can lose more than the fees.
It trusts Pons
The flock calls the Pons factory and curve. If Pons changes them, a flock can fail, and the price floor in the contract makes it revert instead of overpaying.
It is not audited
The contract is small (one file, no owner, no upgrade) and tested against the real chain, but nobody independent has read it. Use small amounts.
Measured on a four-day snapshot of Pons launches (ETH pair, config 0). Outcomes assume everyone exits on the curve. See the Proof page for how to rerun every number.