Alpha Vault

Available on DLMM, DAMM v1, and (soon) DAMM v2.

The Alpha Vault is a complementary anti-bot mechanism used together with a Launch Pool that provides early access for genuine supporters to deposit and purchase tokens before the pool starts trading, thereby getting tokens at the earliest price and helping to safeguard the token launch against sniper bots.

Projects who use the Alpha Vault have the flexibility to tailor vault parameters to suit their specific token launch requirements, such as setting maximum purchase limits and defining the lock-up and vesting periods for users.

Key Features and Benefits

• First-to-purchase ability to front run snipers: The Alpha Vault is whitelisted to buy tokens from the liquidity pool before the launch activation slot, so Alpha Vault users can buy the token at the earliest (and likely lowest) price before the activation slot and thus before sniper bots.

• Fairer distribution: All vault users get their tokens at the same average price and the amount of tokens received is proportional to their share of the total amount of SOL or USDC deposited.

• Configurable parameters for token launches: Projects can configure vault parameters such that tokens bought by the vault are locked for a day or more, and subsequently vested for a few days, encouraging purchase by genuine supporters of the project.

How does it work?

The Alpha Vault for the Launch Pool is first created together with the Launch Pool, using the project’s preferred configurations for the Alpha Vault and pool, including:

• Alpha Vault mode: Pro rata or FCFS

• To accept SOL or USDC deposits

• Alpha Vault Max Buy Cap

• Pool activation slot/time

• Token lock-up period

• Vesting Period for token claims

• To whitelist addresses for deposits or not

• Individual address purchase cap

Deposit Period

The Alpha Vault doesn’t hold any tokens at the start. During the deposit period, the Alpha Vault will accept either SOL or USDC from depositors.

There needs to be a buffer period of at least roughly ~1 hour 5 min between the end of the Alpha Vault deposit period and the pool activation time.

Buying Period

The Alpha Vault is whitelisted to buy tokens from the pool BEFORE the pool is activated to start trading. After the deposit period ends (and before the pool starts trading), the SOL or USDC collected in the Alpha Vault is used to purchase tokens from the pool.

This is essentially a token swap, which means SOL or USDC from the Alpha Vault goes into the pool, while tokens purchased from the pool go into the Alpha Vault. The token pool price would increase from the initial price, based on the token amount purchased by the Alpha Vault.

If the Alpha Vault is using the Pro rata mode (which accepts unlimited deposits), depositors are able to withdraw any unused SOL or USDC that exceeded the Alpha Vault max buy cap.

Token Claiming

When the token unlocks for claiming, the Alpha Vault then distributes the tokens to depositors. Depositors get tokens at the same price, and the amount of tokens received is based on their share of the total deposits.

Creators can configure the Alpha Vault to their preference; whether token claiming is unlocked immediately when the pool starts trading or at a later time/date, and whether there is a vesting period for token claims.

This vesting solution has the dual benefit of mitigating against sniper bots as well as encouraging purchase from the strongest and most genuine supporters of the project, since they would be more willing to hold their tokens for a longer period. This helps ensure greater alignment between projects and token holders.

Example Flow (Pro Rata mode example)

Alpha Vault Modes

• Pro Rata

• FCFS (First come first serve)

Pro Rata

In Pro Rata mode, the Alpha Vault is able to accept unlimited deposits of SOL or USDC, even exceeding the Alpha Vault Max Buy Cap.

After depositing SOL or USDC, depositors can choose to withdraw anytime before the end of the deposit period if they change their mind.

Once the deposit period ends, users can no longer deposit more SOL or USDC or withdraw their earlier deposit. The vault becomes active and after a short buffer period, will begin using the funds collected to buy tokens from the pool.

However, the Alpha Vault would only buy tokens up to the max buy cap. As such, if the deposits by users into the Alpha Vault had exceeded the max buy cap, there will be unused funds, and they can be withdrawn by depositors.

For example, you deposited 100 USDC and TVL in the vault (total deposited) is 10M USDC, but the vault max cap is 1M USDC. Only 1/10th of your USDC deposit will be used to purchase tokens. 90 USDC from your 100 USDC deposit will be unused and returned to you.

All vault users get their tokens at the same price and the amount of tokens received is proportional to your share of the total amount of SOL or USDC deposited.

FCFS

FCFS (First Come First Serve) follows a similar process to Pro Rata mode, but with the following differences:

Unlike Pro rata mode, in FCFS mode, during the deposit period, Alpha Vault max buying cap = max amount of deposits the Alpha Vault accepts. Users can deposit as much as they want initially, but as soon as the vault’s reserve reaches the deposit/buy cap, then no one can deposit more (TVL cannot exceed Vault Max Cap). In other words, deposits are first come first served, up to the Alpha Vault max deposit/buy cap.

For example: If Vault Max Cap is 1M USDC, and a single user is the first to deposit 1M USDC right when deposits open, the vault gets fully filled and no longer accepts further deposits.

By default, each user has no individual deposit cap, which means a single user can technically fill up the entire Alpha Vault deposit/buy cap. However, if required, the project can specify an individual user cap and/or submit a whitelist to allow only certain wallets to deposit.

Once a user deposits funds, the user cannot withdraw them, even during the deposit period.

In FCFS mode, there won’t be any unused USDC or SOL. All deposits would be used to buy the token.

After the Alpha Vault buys the tokens, all depositors will also get tokens at the same average price.

Alpha Vault with Whitelist

For some launches, the project may want to restrict which wallet addresses are allowed to deposit funds into the Alpha Vault, so in the config file used in the script to create the Alpha Vault, the whitelistMode needs to be specified.

• permissionless: No whitelist, anyone can deposit into the Alpha Vault

• permission_with_authority: In this mode, only the Alpha Vault creator can create escrow account with max_cap. This allows the creator to use a permissioned (with whitelist) setup without having to use the merkle tree. Creator needs to pay SOL rent for each escrow account for the whitelisted wallets, so this Alpha Vault whitelist mode is suitable for scenarios where there are very few whitelisted addresses (e.g. =<100). If they need to support a lot more whitelisted addresses, they should still use the merkle tree (PermissionWithMerkleProof whitelist mode).

• permission_with_merkle_proof: In this mode, only wallets that are whitelisted can deposit into the Alpha Vault. Csv file containing the list of whitelisted wallets needs to be provided by the project to Meteora, for the Merkle proof to be hosted by Meteora and shown on the UI. Alpha Vault deposits should not open until the Merkle proof is hosted by Meteora.

Past Alpha Vault Launches

Projects that have used Alpha Vault for their token launches include UpRock (UPT), Sanctum (CLOUD), dVin Labs (VIN), deBridge (DBR), Streamflow (STREAM), SonicVM (SONIC), and Sendcoin (SEND).

Read the CLOUD Launch Case Study here.

Which Launch Pools can be used with Alpha Vault?

Available for DLMM, DAMM v1, and DAMM v2 Launch Pools (soon).

To learn more about Alpha Vault, visit here and read the announcement here.