As of July 31, 2025, the Gate Launchpad Phase III project Ika (IKA) concluded with an astonishing total subscription amount of 348 million USDT. Among them, the participation in the USD1 stablecoin pool alone surpassed 228 million tokens, with nearly 20,000 users competing to purchase, driving the price of IKA to a peak of 0.03391 USD after its launch, an increase of 35.6% from the subscription price of 0.025 USD1. This phenomenal performance is not a coincidence, but rather an inevitable result of Gate’s years of deep cultivation in the Launchpad ecosystem and optimization of asset screening and distribution mechanisms.
IKA: A Milestone Event Driven by Data and Technology
- Subscription Scale and On-chain Capital Migration: After the IKA subscription activity launched on July 26, there was a significant flow of funds on-chain within 72 hours: 170 million USD1 flowed into Gate’s hot wallet via the BSC chain, and another 20 million USD was transferred through Ethereum. This phenomenon closely aligns with the final subscription total of 196 million USD1, making Gate the second largest holder of USD1 among all exchanges (only behind Binance), while also topping the first place in USD1 reserves on the ETH chain.
- The dual-track design highlights market preferences: Gate has adopted the "USD1 + GT dual-track subscription" mechanism for the first time, with the final USD1 pool accounting for 79.3% (196 million pieces), far exceeding the 5.13 million pieces in the GT pool (approximately 9.41 million USD). This stark ratio reflects the current strong demand for risk aversion—amidst the volatile Bitcoin market, investors prefer to lock in Launchpad earnings with stablecoins.
- Technical positioning and short-term performance: As a parallel MPC (Multi-Party Computation) network based on the Sui public chain, IKA aims to address privacy and efficiency issues in data collaboration. Its technical scarcity boosts the enthusiasm for listing, with an opening price rising 35.6% higher than the subscription price, and it supports dual trading pairs IKA/USD1 and IKA/USDT, further consolidating the liquidity position of USD1.
USD1 Stablecoin: A New Variable in the Exchange Liquidity War
The success of IKA highlights Gate’s redefinition of the strategic value of stablecoins. Traditionally, stablecoins were merely a medium of exchange, but this large-scale accumulation of USD1 has brought about threefold changes:
Zero-cost funding pool: During the lock-up period, Gate can allocate nearly 200 million USD1 to enhance spot liquidity (for example, the BTC/USD1 spread narrows to 0.1%).
Compliance endorsement: USD1 is issued by World Liberty Financial (WLFI), pegged 1:1 to short-term US Treasury bonds and cash, and supports real-time auditing, aligning with regulatory trends.
Cross-chain efficiency practice: Over 90% of USD1 is concentrated on the BSC chain, reflecting the tendency of exchanges to build liquidity hubs on public chains with low Gas costs.
This case proves that the reserve amount of stablecoins is becoming a core indicator of the competitiveness of exchanges—Binance has built a $65 billion ecosystem with BUSD/USDC, while Gate has jumped to the second position in exchange holdings by leveraging USD1, directly reshaping the industry hierarchy.
Launchpad competition enters the "stablecoin liquidity combat power" era
The substantial subscription of 348 million USD for IKA signifies a new era: the key factor for exchange Launchpads has shifted from "number of projects" to "size of the capital pool". Gate, with its innovative mechanism of USD1, attracted nearly 200 million USD in stablecoin deposits in a single event, effectively obtaining zero-interest liquidity to enhance trading depth and cross-business synergy.
This model is being rapidly replicated by the industry. Glassnode predicts that by 2026, the global exchange stablecoin holdings will exceed $200 billion, and compliant issuers like WLFI will become strategic resources for exchanges to compete for. In the future, whoever can transform stablecoins from trading tools into infrastructure will dominate the next generation of the crypto financial battlefield.
The evolution of Gate Launchpad is a microcosm of the cryptocurrency industry’s transition from wild growth to capital efficiency. When IKA ignited the market with a 35% opening surge, the undercurrents of USD1 had quietly rewritten the power map of exchanges—there is no smoke, only the constantly shifting numbers on the blockchain, heralding the birth of a new order.
