Create Token Sale is an easy to use STO / IDO / ICO token sale script that lets you run a token sale in a lean way. Use this function to conduct and run an
Initial coin offering (ICO)
Initial DEX offering (IDO)
Security Token Offering (STO)
In order to get started with your Token Sale, you need to have a token prepared. Unless you already created a token, go to Create Token to configure and create your token.
Once you have your token created, you can enter the Create Token Sale function and select the token that you want to run a token sale for from the drop-down menu.
All available tokens that you own are automatically shown in the drop-down menu. Alternatively you can paste the token contract address in the input field.
We recommend that you don't use tokens in a token sale that have whitelisting enabled. If you still want to use such a token in a token sale, you will have to add the token sale contract address to the whitelist as well as the addresses of all investors otherwise you will not be able to start the token sale and investors wouldn't be able to claim their tokens after the sale is over.
You should also be careful when creating a token sale that have transaction tax/fees, as you would need to fund the sale contract with the full amount of tokens on sale.
Once you have selected the token and clicked Continue, you will enter Step 1 of 2: Configure your token sale.
Here you determine, how your investors will pay for the tokens you have on sale. In the past, many token sales have been conducted in a way that the only payment method was the native cryptocurrency of the blockchain on which the token was created.
In the case of Ethereum, this was ETH or in the case of Polygon it was MATIC. This has the disadvantage that investors and issuers are exposed to exchange rate fluctuations of the underlying cryptocurrency.
Therefore, Token Tool lets you choose any custom token on the selected chain as a payment method. The most common choice here is a stable coin such as USDC.
Of course, you are free to use any stable coin or custom token. Just make sure that the payment token is easily accessible for your investors. You can also include a DEX widget in your token sale for convenient exchange from cryptocurrencies such as ETH to the payment token / stable coin of your choice.
If you choose a custom payment token, you will need to specify the payment token via its token contract address. If you have the custom token in your own wallet, you can simply select it from the drop-down menu, then you don't need to look up the token contract address.
For convenience, here is the USDC contract address for each supported blockchain:
Avalanche: 0xB97EF9Ef8734C71904D8002F8b6Bc66Dd9c48a6E
Binance Smart Chain: USDC is not supported on BSC directly but there is a pegged USDC version 0x8AC76a51cc950d9822D68b83fE1Ad97B32Cd580d and other stable coins such as Binance USD (BUSD) 0xe9e7CEA3DedcA5984780Bafc599bD69ADd087D56
Make sure to only enter the contract address in Token Tool, not the full block explorer link. Please note that on the respective testnets the token contract addresses are different, you can look up USDC testnet contract addresses here.
This determines the price per token on sale quoted in the selected payment token. So let's assume that you choose USDC as the payment token, then entering a value of 5 means that for each token on sale 5 USDC has to be paid by your investors.
Sometimes you may want to provide incentives for investors to invest in your token sale early on. One way to do that is to apply discounts / lower prices in different weeks throughout the token sale such as:
Week 1-2 token price: USDC 0.90
Week 2-5 token price: USDC 0.95
Week 5-8 token price: USDC 0.98
In order to do that you can set up a separate token sale for each tier. Just make sure to set the start time and duration of each token sale in a way that there are no time gaps between the different tiers.
Let’s assume you want to raise up to USDC 100,000 for your token. Here is how you can incentivize injvestors to join early
How It Works: Create separate token sales for each pricing tier.
Example:
Tier 1 early bird: sell up to 10,000 tokens at the lowest price of USDC 0.75 per token (this implies a 25% discount) for 3 days or shorter if the hardcap is reached – this means you raise up to USDC 7,500 in this tier
Tier 2 main sale: immediately after Tier 1 finishes (either after 3 days or once the hard cap is reached) you create a second token sale contract, here you sell up to 80,000 tokens at a price of USDC 0.85 per token (this implies a 15% discount) for 6 days or shorter if the hardcap is reached – this means you raise up to USDC 68,000 in this tier
Tier 3 late comers: immediately after Tier 2 finishes (either after 6 days or once the hard cap is reached) you create a third token sale contract, here you sell up to 25,789 tokens at a price of USDC 0.96 per token (this implies a 4% discount) for 3 days or shorter if the hardcap is reached – this means you raise up to USDC 24,500 in this tier
Steps to Implement:
Create the first token sale (e.g., early-bird tier) with the desired price and duration.
If desired, use whitelisting to restrict participation to approved addresses for the early-bird sale.
After the first sale ends, create a second token sale (e.g., main sale) with updated pricing.
Pros:
Simple to implement using Token Tool’s existing features.
Clear separation of pricing tiers for investors.
Challenges:
Requires managing multiple sales and making sure that the next tier starts immediately after the previous one ends.
How It Works: Sell tokens at a single price during the entire sale, then manually distribute additional tokens to early investors as a bonus to reflect discounts.
Steps to Implement:
Create a single token sale with a base price (e.g., USDC 0.15 per token).
Record investments made by early-bird participants (e.g., within the first 3 days or up to a certain total amount raised). You can easily retrieve addresses of investors from the block explorer when inspecting the transaction history of your token sale contract address.
After the sale ends, calculate and distribute additional tokens to early investors based on the discount (e.g., 2 additional tokens for every token invested during the first tier, 1 additional token for every token invested during the second tieretc.). You can easily airdorp tokens to your investors with Token Tool.
Pros:
Simplifies the token sale process by using a single sale.
Allows retroactive implementation of tiered pricing.
Challenges:
Requires manual calculations and token distribution.
Soft cap: this is the amount you need to raise by the end of the token sale in order for the token sale to happen. The soft cap must be lower than the hard cap. Soft cap range: so let's assume USDC is your payment token and you want to raise USDC 5,000,000. The soft cap can be a maximum of USDC 4,999,999 and a minimum of USDC 0. If this amount is not reached, the invested funds can be reclaimed by investors after the token sale is over.
Hard cap: this is the maximum amount that you can raise in your token sale.
Choose an amount that is in line with your funding needs and that you believe you can realistically raise from investors.
This setting is optional and allows you to control the maximum and minimum investment per investor.
Min investment amount: if you set this too high, the entry barrier for some investors might be prohibitive. If you set this to a very low amount, you might have to manage many very small investors.
A value between 1 and 100 dollars normally makes sense unless you are allowed to only accept accredited or professional investors who invest much higher amounts each.
Max investment amount: this is the maximum one investor can invest.
Please note that the investment amounts min and max values are tied to addresses, it is therefore possible to circumvent these limits. If you want to make sure that a certain investor doesn't exceed the limits, you need to set up the token sale in a way that only whitelisted addresses can invest. That way you can make the connection between a particular investor and an address.
Token sale start time: this is the moment from which investors can invest.
It normally makes sense to run a marketing phase before your token sale starts. You should also allocate enough time to send the tokens to the token sale contract address. When you want to whitelist investors, you can also do that during a ramp-up phase before your token sale starts.
Typically anything between starting in a few days up to several weeks are usual values here.
Important: if you want your token sale to start immediately, we highly recommend to leave enough time to send your tokens to the sale contract. Therefore, make sure you leave at least half an hour between the time you create the sale and the token sale start time.
Token sale duration in days: this determines how long investors can invest in your token sale.
When this is too short, you might not have enough time to find investors. If too long, your marketing impact might fade away. Adjust everything according to your needs. Anything between 2 and 12 weeks (i.e. between 14 and 90 days) is usual here.
As stated above, sometimes you might want to provide discounts for early investors. In that case it makes sense to set up a token sale for each discount tier and align the start and duration of each discount phase accordingly.
The token sale ends either at the end of the token sale duration or when the hard cap is reached.
Lock duration in days: this determines how many days after the token sale ends investors can claim their tokens.
Burn unsold tokens: by activating this option, all unsold tokens can be burned after token sale ends.
This setting has a big impact on how you onboard investors, make a careful decision here.
Every address can invest: in this case everybody can invest in your token sale. This option is suitable for unregulated token sales such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) where you don't need to know the identity of your investors. Here you don't need any additional investor on-boarding. The Token Sale function of Token Tool delivers everything you need for the entire process.
Only whitelisted addresses can invest: when you select this option, an investor can only invest from an address that you whitelisted previously. This option is suitable for token sales where investor KYC is necessary e.g. for regulatory reasons. This is usually the case in a Security Token Offering (STO). The whitelisting of addresses is done under the Manage Token Sale functionality.
You can manage investor on-boarding manually via a spreadsheet or use other products for this such as ERP software.
When you manage investor on-boarding via a spreadsheet, everyone who wants to invest should send you an email containing the following information:
Full name (and legal entity in case of an institutional investor)
KYC document (e.g. image of an ID card or passport) of investor or legal representative
Full postal address
Date and place of birth
Citizenship
Tax ID
Email address
Blockchain wallet address
Declaration about source of funds
When all data is checked, the wallet address can be added to the whitelist and email updates can be sent (e.g. when the sale starts and finishes).
By default the wallet address with which you are logged-in to token tool is the owner. However, you can also assign a different owner who will then be able to manage the token sale. Only change this if you know what you are doing!
After you click Continue you arrive at Step 2 of 2: Review token sale configuration. Here you can review everything. Once done, click on the Create sale button to launch your token sale.
After you confirmed the token sale creation from your wallet, you will be shown the Token sale contract address and Shareable token sale link. Bookmark them both!
The Shareable token sale link is the page that you need to share with your investors so they can invest. It normally makes sense to include this page on your existing website via an iframe. Then you can display your project details, team, roadmap etc. on your website and have the token sale page through which investors invest integrated directly.
The Token sale contract address is necessary to log in to Manage Token Sale.
You can edit your token sale up until 10 minutes before the start of the token sale in the Manage Token Sale section. It is not possible to make edits to the token sale once the tokens have been transferred to the sale contract.
Once you create the token sale successfully it's important that you send tokens to the token sale contract under the Manage Token Sale function or via standard ERC20 transfer. Otherwise the sale will fail upon start time.
Under Manage Token Sale you can review the status of your token sale and edit parameters before the start. To enter the Manage screen, you either need to paste you token sale contract address in the input field or click the cogwheel icon from the list of your token sales.
Here you can review the address of the token that is on sale, the public token sale link for investors and further details. Before the sale starts, it is critical that the token sale contract received the tokens that are on sale.
To send the tokens to the sale contract, simply click on the Transfer Tokens button and complete the steps for processing the transaction.
If you want to change the parameters of your token sale, you have to do that before you Transfer Tokens. After tokens have been sent to the sale contract, no more editing is possible.
The Token Sale link Is the page on which investors will be submitting their investments. Important: make sure that investors invest in your sale only using the token sale page provided with the token sale link. Investors must not send their investment directly to the token sale contract address.
The Token sale sharing/iframe embedding section under the Token sale information provides a code snippet that you can easily attach the public sale page to your website via an iframe.
For an additional cost, you can enable custom theme for your token sale page. This allows you to customize the colors of the token sale investor interface to fit your branding/website theme.
To enable custom branding, click on "Enable custom theme" and pay fees in your wallet. Once the transaction is complete, you will be provided with the customization assistant tool to help you set up the token sale page based on your requirements. You can use it to generate the required link/iframe with the custom branding for your own use.
You can see an example of how the iframe is implemented in this how to create a token presale blog post. Of course you can edit the parameters such as height and width.
This way you can create a website that describes your project, team, roadmap, use of proceeds etc. and embed the Token Sale page according to your own branding without the need to send investors to a separate website.
If you look for guidance on the to manage investor on-boarding, please go to this section of the Create Token Sale documentation.
To add investors to the whitelist you can either paste one or multiple addresses in the input field that opens after you click Add addresses. Alternatively you can upload a CSV file or a spreadsheet with all addresses.
Sometimes investors want to cancel their investment. In this case you may either want to grant a refund out of fairness or you may even be required to do so by law. In Germany for instance private investors have a right to cancel online purchases / investments for 14 days.
There are two ways how you can handle refunds:
Blacklist the wallet address of the investor and send them their money back. In this case they won't be able to claim their tokens after the token sale is finished.
When the token sale is over and the investor has claimed their tokens, ask them to send the tokens back to you and issue the refund in return.
Token sale is automatically finished when either of the two conditions occur:
Specified sale duration is finished. The total investment is either above or below the softcap.
Sale ends early due to all available tokens getting purchased (hardcap reached).
It is recommended to remind investors in any case after the token sale finishes. This way they will know that they can claim their tokens (if softcap was reached) or claim their funds (if softcap was not reached).
Investors simply claim their tokens or funds respectively from the same page where they invested.
As the token sale organizer you will want to withdraw the invested funds (if softcap was reached after the token sale ended or immediately after the hardcap was reached) or withdraw tokens (if softcap was not reached) from the token sale contract. If the softcap was reached but the hard cap was not reached, there will also be some remaining tokens. You can withdraw these as well under the Manage Token Sale functionality.
The following buttons are visible when you scroll all the way down. Note
that the buttons become active after the token sale ends and the conditions for the withdrawals are met.
In the case you activated the "Burn unsold tokens" feature upon creating the token sale, you will need to manually click the burn button under the withdrawals section of the manage token sale:
