How does the timing of TGE affect project development? Identify investment opportunities in valuable tokens by distinguishing between strong and weak TGEs.

Reviewing the price performance of Berachain ($BERA), Movement ($MOVE), and Hyperliquid ($HYPE), we find that the “token generation event (TGE)” can be the starting point for project value discovery, or it can be the beginning of a bubble burst. How to distinguish between strong and weak TGEs, master the timing of issuance, and understand market liquidity has become a necessary course for the new generation of investors.

From high-demand token generation events to product cold launches: hype does not guarantee success.

According to Justin Vogel, co-founder of Safary, the TGE data from the past 18 months reveals a harsh reality: “Almost all high-profile and highly anticipated TGEs have collapsed within 48 hours of issuance. The new strategy is to wait for adoption before the TGE, or to issue on a small scale and accumulate value over time.”

He divided the TGE into two categories:

Strong TGE (Strong): Such as Berachain ($BERA) and Movement ($MOVE), the community enthusiasm is explosive, and the listing on exchanges attracts widespread attention, however, the price quickly reaches its peak.

Weak TGE (Weak): Like Zora ($ZORA) and Virtuals ($VIRTUL), the issuance was low-key and silent at launch, but has steadily risen with product landing and community growth.

This trend indicates that the market is shifting from speculation to assessing strength:

The past TGE model rewarded pessimists and punished believers; however, if the incentive mechanism can return to real adoption and fundamentals in the future, believers will ultimately prevail.

Building your own distribution channel is more critical than listing on exchanges.

jkey further pointed out that most teams still regard centralized exchanges (CEX) as the only distribution channel, which is the fundamental problem of “weak TGE”. In contrast, successful projects often build their own user channels and community distribution, making exchange listings an “added value” rather than a lifeline:

Successful projects that have long been dedicated to building a real user base do not need to seek token listings, as CEX will actively come to them.

(CZ responds to the Binance listing fee controversy: If you don't want to pay, then don't pay; good projects don't need to beg for listing ).

Taking Virtuals as an example: they completed their token issuance a year before the AI boom, and with stable products and community diffusion, they later capitalized on the AI agent trend and became long-term winners.

This rhythm of “having a product before issuing tokens” allows projects to maintain vitality even after the market cools down, rather than just being a brief price fireworks display.

Liquidity cycles are the real key to the success or failure of a TGE.

In this regard, senior researcher Haotian approached it from the perspective of market cycles, offering his observations: “The performance of the TGE often depends on the current market liquidity rather than the project's fundamentals.”

He gave an example:

By the end of 2023: With strong liquidity, the performance of NFTs community tokens like $Pengu was even more impressive than most projects at that time.

April to May 2024: Liquidity depletion, projects like Babylon ($BABY) and Huma Finance ($HUMA), which have technical narratives and VC endorsements, are also unable to escape the fate of price weakness.

When market funds cannot be sustained, even high-quality projects may be wrongly killed; conversely, during a flood of funds, projects without fundamentals can also experience short-term surges. This is precisely the reason for peaks right after opening.

Value in a Downturn: The Reverse Victory of Zora and Virtual

However, Haotian still pointed out that during the wrong TGE time window, it is easier to give birth to long-term winners.

Zora: Issued during a quiet market, breaking through with a token launch platform narrative and creator tokenization ecosystem.

Virtual: Launched in a low liquidity phase, it generated a buzz at the beginning of the year thanks to the practical scenarios of the AI agent and a solid community.

He emphasized that liquidity bonuses, if not supported by fundamentals, will only accelerate death; while strong fundamentals during unpopular periods are the golden opportunity for value discovery.

( Breakdown of the Virtuals Points System: Retail-friendly, encourages long-term holding, reduces issuance valuation to create upward space )

Insights for Investors: From Research, Screening to Entry

At the end of the article, Haotian also provides a clear trading context: “For most retail investors, it is important to understand the significance of the TGE time window and adopt differentiated strategies.”

When market liquidity is good, cautiously chase strong TGE projects for quick in-and-out trades; when the market is quiet, focus on finding undervalued quality projects and hold them for the long term. In this way, both could potentially become the ultimate winners.

Nowadays, TGE is no longer a stage for traffic and speculation, but a starting point for validating product value. Whether a strong community can be built around practical products has become a key issue for projects.

How does the timing of TGE affect project development? Identify investment opportunities for valuable tokens by distinguishing strong and weak TGE. First appeared in Chain News ABMedia.