Launchpad (design)

Hooks

What a hook is, the catalogue, and how several stack into one token's behaviour.

What a hook is#

A hook is one on-chain module with one job. It declares when it runs, what it reads, and what it is allowed to move. A creator picks it from a list and fills in numbers; they never see its code, and they never have to.

hook = { when it runs, what it reads, what it may move, its parameters }

example — Stock rewards
  when      a swap settles on the token's pool
  reads     the fee collected by that swap
  may move  only the fees this hook collected
  params    split 50/50, target asset, payout cadence

That last line matters more than it looks. A hook can only ever move value that the hook itself collected. It cannot reach into a holder's wallet, cannot mint, and cannot touch another hook's balance. The creator's configuration chooses between behaviours the module already permits — it cannot invent new ones.

The catalogue#

Modules fall into three families, and a token may take from all three.

Rewards#

Hook	What it does
Holder rewards	Pays collected fees to holders in the token itself or in SOL, pro rata, on a cadence.
Stock rewards	Converts a share of fees into a tokenized equity and distributes that instead. Holders accumulate an asset the token does not control.
Lottery	Pools a share of fees and pays one holder per round, weighted by holding, drawn from an on-chain source of randomness.
Referral rewards	Credits the wallet that referred a buyer with a slice of that buyer's fees.
Loyalty rewards	Scales a holder's share by how long they have held without selling.
Revenue share	Routes a fixed share of fees to named wallets: the team, a treasury, a charity, the utility's own running costs.

Trading#

Hook	What it does
Buyback	Spends collected fees buying the token back off the market.
Auto burn	Burns what the buyback bought, or burns a share of each transfer. Supply only goes down.
Anti-snipe	Caps the size and rate of buys in the opening window, so the first block cannot take the float.
Dynamic fee	Moves the fee with conditions — higher on sells into weakness, lower on quiet markets — within bounds the creator sets at launch.
LP rewards	Pays a share of fees to the wallets providing liquidity rather than to all holders.

Access and privacy#

Hook	What it does
Access rules	Gates the utility behind a balance: hold n tokens, the content unlocks. This is the existing ownership check with a balance test instead of a purchase test.
Transfer rules	Allow and deny lists, lockups, per-wallet caps, cooldowns between transfers.
Compliance	Jurisdiction or attestation requirements for tokens that need them. Opt-in, never a default.

The hook stack#

One token may run several hooks at once. The creator drags them into order, configures each, and launches. The stack is what gives a token its character:

$MONSTER

  ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
  │ 1  ANTI-SNIPE     first 10 min, 0.5% cap │
  ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 2  DYNAMIC FEE    2–6%, by volatility    │
  ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 3  STOCK REWARD   40% of fees → NVDA     │
  ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 4  BUYBACK        40% of fees            │
  ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 5  BURN           everything bought back │
  └──────────────────────────────────────┘

  drag → drop → configure → launch

The closest familiar thing is an app store for a shop: Shopify apps, but for token economics. The creator assembles behaviour from parts other people wrote and tested.

Order is part of the design#

Hooks run in the order they are stacked, and each one sees what the previous one left. That makes ordering a real decision, not a cosmetic one:

fee collected on a swap:  100 units

  stacked as 3 → 4 → 5          stacked as 4 → 5 → 3
  stock reward takes 40          buyback takes 40
  buyback takes 40 of the rest   burn consumes it
  burn consumes the buyback      stock reward takes 40 of the rest
  → holders get NVDA from 40     → holders get NVDA from 24

The launch screen shows this arithmetic with the creator's own numbers before anything is signed, the same way the launch console shows the 95/5 split while a price is being typed. A creator should never discover their own token's behaviour after the fact.

What a stack may not do#

No hook may mint. Supply is fixed at launch, and only burns move it.
No hook may move tokens a holder did not send. Rewards come from collected fees, never from balances.
No hook may be added, removed or reconfigured after launch unless the creator declared it mutable at launch, and that declaration is visible on the token's page forever.
A stack has a ceiling on total fees. A creator cannot assemble a 90% tax by stacking five modules that each look reasonable alone.

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