Crypto Newbie / Simulators / LBP
LBP / Dutch Auction Launchpad Simulator
Balancer LBPs (Liquidity Bootstrapping Pools) launched major projects like FEI, Gnosis Auction, and dozens of recent Copper/Fjord raises. The mechanism: a 2-token pool where weights shift from 96/4 toward 50/50 over a few days. As weights shift, the price decays mechanically — early sniper bots overpay, patient buyers get a fair price. This simulator runs the Balancer math and lets you drag through time to see the curve.
Auction setup
Timeline
Token weight now
96.0% token
Spot price now
$1.200000
Buy at this time
Natural price decay (no trades)
If nobody buys, the price falls only because the weights are shifting. Real LBPs combine this decay with selling pressure from buyers, pushing the price even lower.
Start
0h
$1.20000
Late
18h
$0.27258
Mid
36h
$0.13519
Late
54h
$0.07987
End
72h
$0.05000
Why weight-shifting causes price decay
The Balancer spot price formula is (Bo/Wo) / (Bi/Wi). Holding balances constant, increasing the USDC weight (W_usdc going from 4% to 50%) increases its denominator share, which mathematically decreases the price of the token side. Even with ZERO selling pressure, the price drops just from weights moving. Real LBPs combine this with actual buying — which adds USDC to the pool — pushing the price down faster. The team can't manipulate which way the price moves; it only ever decays.
The anti-sniper mechanism
On a normal AMM launch, the first buyer pays the lowest price. On Pump.fun's bonding curve, this is extreme — early sniper bots get tokens for 1/100th the post-graduation price. On an LBP, the opposite is true: the FIRST buyer pays the HIGHEST price, because weights start heavily skewed toward token (96%). A bot buying at minute 1 might pay $10/token; a human waiting until hour 36 pays $1/token. This inversion is the entire reason fair-launch projects pick LBP over bonding curve.
Real numbers from launches
Copper Fjord (the standard LBP service) typically configures: starting weight 80-95% token, ending weight 50/50, duration 48-72 hours, raise target $1-10M. Buyers who wait the full duration save 50-80% on price vs minute-1 buyers. The trade-off: they risk the supply selling out before they buy (rare in practice — LBPs are sized to NOT sell out, otherwise the whole price-decay mechanism breaks).
When LBP fails as a fair launch
Three failure modes: (1) Too much initial liquidity → price decay is slow, late buyers don't get the discount intended. (2) Too little initial liquidity → curve sells out before fair-price discovery. (3) Insider buying with private orders → some launches saw whales place hidden multi-million-dollar buys at the high-price end, then dump after the public phase. LBPs work best when the team commits to a true public auction with no preferential treatment.
Frequently asked questions
+How is LBP different from bonding curve (Pump.fun)?
Bonding curve: price ALWAYS goes up as more is bought. First buyer wins, sniper game. LBP: price ALWAYS goes down over time (weights shifting), buyers compete with patience instead of speed. Bonding curve is for memecoin gambling; LBP is for serious launches with fair distribution goals.
+Can I sell my LBP tokens during the auction?
Technically yes — the pool is a Balancer pool, both sides can swap. But selling pushes the price DOWN further (you're adding tokens, taking USDC), and you'd typically lose money vs holding. The intended mechanic is: buy during the auction, hold through the close, then sell on secondary markets after the auction ends.
+What happens to the LBP pool after the auction ends?
Two options. (1) Team withdraws the collected USDC + remaining tokens, then seeds normal Uniswap/Balancer pools with new liquidity. (2) Team converts the LBP pool to a standard weighted pool by removing the weight-shift schedule. Most LBPs use option 1 because it gives clearer control over post-launch liquidity.
+Why does the price decay slow down toward the end?
Weight shift is linear in time, but the price formula is non-linear in weights. Early in the auction (96% → 80% token weight), each percentage point of weight shift causes a big % price drop. Late in the auction (60% → 50% token weight), the same percentage shift causes a smaller % price drop. Buying near the end optimises for the last marginal discount, but the curve flattens out so patience pays diminishing returns.
+Are LBP launches a good investment?
Better than bonding curves on fair-launch criteria, but the average LBP token still underperforms BTC after 6 months. The advantage is you get to choose your entry price along the decay curve — patient buyers can achieve below-team-expected entry. The disadvantage is the project still has all the normal post-launch risks (team execution, market conditions, tokenomics). LBP fixes the launch mechanic, not the underlying investment thesis.