Fair Launch
A token launch with no presale or insider allocation: everyone, including the team, buys from the same public pool on the same starting terms.
A fair launch is a token distribution model with no presale, no private sale, and no insider allocation: the entire supply becomes available through the same public mechanism, and everyone, including the team, acquires tokens on identical terms. It is the opposite of launches where venture funds and insiders buy earlier and cheaper, then sell into public demand once the token lists.
The idea traces back to Bitcoin, which had no premine and distributed every coin through mining, open to anyone with hardware. In DeFi it resurfaced with tokens launched directly into liquidity pools, and pump-style launchpads made it a default: every token starts from the same pool or curve, with the launch rules enforced by a contract anyone can read instead of a promise in a whitepaper.
A fair launch removes one class of risk, not all of them. Sniper bots can buy in the first seconds and behave like de facto insiders, a deployer can quietly buy from their own launch using separate wallets, and a fairly launched token can still lose most of its value. Checking holder concentration on a block explorer usually tells you more than the fair-launch label does.
Mechanism design can strengthen the guarantee. Pairing a fair launch with locked liquidity means the creator cannot pull the pool after buyers arrive. A Base launchpad that combines both sends every token into a public pool with the LP locked for years, so the terms are enforced by code rather than by trust. Even then, fair distribution is a statement about the starting line, not about where the price goes afterward.