ZKPad is the first launchpad on StarkNet. Our platform offers a safe and decentralized way for users to invest in pre-selected crypto startups.
The retail investment market is one of the fastest-growing segments of the financial market.
Societal changes, most notably materialized by the growing desire of individuals to put their money to work, and to achieve financial freedom faster than with just a traditional job, are only part of the progress that personal finance is making around the world. The increasing inflation in traditional and centralized finance, with record-high rates, is further pushing individuals to find solutions to counter this problem.
Advances in fintech have made personal finance more exciting for both individuals and companies entering this market segment with security additions.
The average household has less money and is therefore much less prone to various risks and fees, which can be more easily measured and amortized by companies.
We have seen the transition in time of the stock market to adapt to the demand of retail investors, and thus address a large and still untouched market. This transition was first made by the possibility to hire a broker, then to use a paid electronic broker, before becoming widely available to the general public in more recent times. These various steps have made it possible to popularize the stock market.
Individual investors have therefore been able to invest in the stock market and in companies known to the general public, in order to attempt to invest their savings in the best possible way.
Despite these efforts, we can observe today that the participation of individuals in venture capital is negligible: the global venture capital market has reached nearly 300 billion dollars. Personal funding is on track to reach $1.1 billion.
Annual personal participation in venture capital is about $2 billion, which means that personal participation is only 1% of the global venture capital market, and venture capital participation is only 0.2% of the personal-finance market.
These numbers therefore speak to the inability of industry firms to bring individuals into venture capital participation, despite the attractive potential profits that individuals could rub shoulders with.
Moreover, it should be said that these figures are even more true in the blockchain environment, where it is still much less developed, and individuals have a harder time entering.
In order to explain the low participation of individuals in venture capital, we must place ourselves in their shoes. Households that invest their savings are more likely to steer clear of riskier investments, thus turning to low-rate, risk-free income solutions. Venture capital participation is therefore limited by the risks involved, and this is one of the main reasons why it is difficult to attract retail investors. This conclusion is even truer in the blockchain environment, where scammers and short-term builders are very present, however there is little or no regulation.
Therefore, a new vision must be instilled in order to attract these investors, by offering them a platform that limits their risks, while allowing them to have access to gains far superior to what they are used to having elsewhere. That’s what ZkPad is all about.

TWO MAIN VISION ABOUT ZKPAD

Making an accessible platform
Our first mission is to facilitate the accessibility of zk-Rollups’ technologies for individuals and developers alike. For that, we will have in heart to provide educational content on this technology. This content will include tutorials, analyses, explanations, ecosystem data etc… We will set up complex technology monitoring tools, as well as data collection tools to be able to offer important data and information for all.
We are also committed to producing tools for developers and builders, especially in Cairo, to enable faster adoption by teams and startups wishing to develop on zk-Rollups. We have a double mission in the educational field, whether for individuals or for startups and builders.
Reducing the risk for retail investors
Our second mission will be to reduce the risk for individuals using ZkPad, as investments are so risky in today’s environment, between scams, weak teams and/or market hazards. We have chosen to focus on the public sales segment at first, with a launchpad, however we plan to offer earlier investments for our users in the future. Later on we would like to offer seed investments, with strategies to guarantee retail investors zero losses no matter what, but that will come later. Regarding the IDOs we will launch on ZkPad, we will do the necessary research to ensure maximum security for our users. An internal review process will be run to ensure the security of users when investing. The two selection filters will be detailed later in this paper, however we believe it is necessary to have several stages of verification in order not to miss anything. On the other hand, verification is not always enough to guarantee the security of investors, which is why we believe that another, more financial security should be added.

ZKPAD KEY FEATURE

There are 4 Main Feature that make ZKPad different and make things more easire for investors and builders.

1. TOKENIZED WHITELIST
2. For each project listed on ZKPad, ZKP token stackers will received whitelist right as NFTs. These NFTs can either give users the right to invest in IDOs on ZKPad or can be resold to another investor.
3. ON-CHAIN LOTTERY SYSTEM
4. Most launchpads have an unclear off-chain lottery system to determine the whitelisted investors. For more transparency, we’ve decided to implement this mechanism completely on-chain.
5. MANAGED MARKET MAKING
6. Managing the market making of the tokens for each project will allow us to control the front-running and eventual “pump and dumps” at the token listing. We opted for to a fixed swap pool system.
7. OPTIMIZED STAKING REWARDS
8. Staking your ZKP tokens will provide you with a boosted yield. This will be achieved by leveraging Defi protocols on our vaults.

BENEFIT FOR INVESTORS AND BUILDERS

It’s really interesting to find this kind of project that gives both sides benefits, and this is really something new and need to include to this article, so here’s the benefits:
INVESTOR’S BENEFIT
Venture Capital made more open. ZkPad allows you to invest in the most promising projects on StarkNet. Our priorities are safety, decentralization and a great user experience in order to make early-stage project investment more open. We believe that fortune favors the bold and indeed investing early on a project is what generates the most return on investment. Our platform is specifically design to open investment opportunities, formerly reserved to investement funds, to retail investors.
BUILDER’S BENEFIT
Raise funds and join our accelerator program. ZkPad offers more than a safe platform for your IDO. The goal of the ZkPad accelerator is to provide founders with strategic and operational support including co-marketing on Twitter/Discord, partnership and ecosystem intros, access to a database of vetted talents including Cairo developers, UX/UI designers and marketers.

TOKENOMICS

17,5% of the tokens will be sold at the launch of the project, with 5% allocated to the Seed phase, 15% to the private sale, and finally 10% for the public sale. 17,5% will be allocated to the DAO treasury, and will therefore be used according to the decisions of the community, and will allow the development of the project. 20% will be reserved for the different programs aimed at bringing liquidity to the project, whether to form the initial liquidity or for the staking of LPs in our vault, in order to obtain xZKP allowing access to the ZKP ecosystem. 20% for the team and future talented people who will join the ZkPad Labs. 5% for advisors who will help us in designing the best protocol possible and review projects launching on ZkPad.
Finally, 20% will be reserved for the staking in the vault of the $ZKP token. This will be in addition to the various strategies in place.
Here is the information about the release schedule of the token:
TOKEN ALLOCATION
The team deliberately opted for high inflation at the beginning to create long-term sustainability. Successful DeFi protocols have almost universally implemented high emissions to help bootstrap a community and liquidity. Moreover, the design of the ZKP vaults creates uniquely high rewards for users who are willing to lock up their ZKP for longer periods. These users will be playing a key role in bootstrapping liquidity for the protocol. This group will prove themselves to be the best stewards of the protocol and therefore the best possible trustees of the DAO.
In addition, we have chosen to add vesting on the tokens of the team, the DAO treasury and the investors. Indeed, despite our total confidence in the involvement of investors in the long term, as well as our dedication to the project, we prefer to vest these allocations in order to guarantee the security of all and to secure these statements.

Governance

A DAO will be put in place later this year as major tools such as Snapshot & Gnosis get deployed on Starknet. We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel here but rather use battle-tested tools for managing our governance.

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