The short answer
A community takeover (CTO) gives a token to its holders, but it does not give them a public place to sell. One option is to make a buyback pool for the token on DragHold: USDC that buys the token at a fixed price for a fixed time, and anything not paid out goes back to the backer. It costs a fee that is never returned, plus the USDC paid to holders who sell.
This site is a preview. It does not submit deposits or pool sales. The pool descriptions below explain the program, not an available trading service.
What a community takeover is
A community takeover (CTO) is when the holders of an abandoned token start to run it themselves, after the original developer has left. In practice, they take over the token’s social media accounts, work together on Telegram and X, and sometimes ask token trackers to mark the token as a CTO.
Beware of fake CTOs
A fake CTO is when someone else claims to “relaunch” a dead token to attract new buyers, often without really working with the original community. The CTO label alone tells you nothing. Two things show the difference between a real takeover and a fake one:
- The team works with the existing holders. The people running it work openly with the holders who were already there, in the channels those holders use.
- Nothing is asked of new buyers. A real takeover is for the people who already hold the token. A pitch to people who do not hold it yet, asking them to buy, is a warning sign.
First steps after a takeover
There is no standard plan, and none of this is advice. These basics make a takeover easier for holders to check:
- Say publicly who is involved and how decisions are made.
- Publish every wallet address the community controls, and what each one is for.
- If anyone running the takeover also holds the token or backs it with a pool, say so publicly, with the wallet addresses.
- Write the plan down, including what the community cannot do. It cannot change the token’s past, and it cannot promise anything about the price.
- Keep holders informed in one place, and say clearly when something does not work.
One option: a public USDC buyback on DragHold
Anyone, including a CTO community or one of its members, can make a buyback pool for a token on DragHold. A pool is a public offer to buy the token at a fixed price, for a fixed time. Once it opens, anyone who holds the token can sell it straight into the pool at that price, any amount up to what the pool still buys. Every hour, chains of tokens also pay a bonus for selling them together.
- The money is kept in a program-controlled vault. The current code has no admin withdrawal instruction, but the owner can upgrade the program and change the rules, including access to funds.
- A pool cannot be cancelled, not even before it opens: the deposit stays in it until it closes.
- Once open, the pool buys at its price until its time is over or it has bought all its tokens.
- Then all USDC left (unsold payout and unused bonus) goes back to the backer. One transaction that anyone can send returns it, and it can only go to the backer.
- Every token sold into the pool is burned in the same transaction that pays the seller.
Choosing the pool size and the duration. The pool buys a number of tokens you choose (the pool size, N), any whole number from 1,000 up to the most the token’s decimals allow (18,446,744,073 for a token with 9 decimals, more for a token with fewer), for a week, a month, 3 months or a year. Its price is the payout divided by N, and it does not change while the pool is open: the same payout spread over more tokens pays less for each one. With the current 20% fee and 10% chain bonus, the payout must be at least $87.50, so the smallest deposit is $125. For example, a $1,250 deposit is split into a $250 fee, a $125 chain bonus and a $875 payout. With N = 100,000, the price is $0.00875 per token: selling 10,000 tokens into the pool pays $87.50, or $100 in a chain, with the bonus. If holders sell all 100,000, the whole $875 is paid out. Try your own numbers on the Create a pool page.
Your price compared with the market price matters. If the pool’s price is higher than the market price, traders buy the token on the market and sell it into the pool first (this is called arbitrage). These trades may affect the market price, but do not guarantee any price level. If the pool’s price is at or below the market price and nobody sells, the backer loses only the fee. The Create a pool page shows both cases.
The schedule. You can make a pool at any time. Pools open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12:00 UTC: a pool opens at the one of these its backer picks, from 72 hours to a year after making it, buys for its duration, and closes when the time is over or it has bought all its tokens. Every hour, the contract picks up to 3 chains of up to 5 tokens at random, from the tokens whose pools are open, and fresh tokens go first: tokens never in a chain, and tokens back after all their pools ran out. Each chain is announced one hour before it opens and stays open for one hour. Selling the same amount of each of its tokens together pays every pool its price plus its bonus: about 14.3% more with the default settings.
DragHold does not promote tokens. A pool’s fixed price is only what that pool pays. It is not a valuation of the token.
What it costs, and what it doesn’t do
- The platform fee (now 20%) is taken when the pool is made and never returned.
- The USDC paid to sellers (the price and the bonus) is spent for good. You do not get the tokens they sell: they are burned.
- It does not set the token’s market price. The pool pays its own fixed price; prices elsewhere are set by the people who trade there.
- Nothing promises attention, trading volume or a price. You earn no interest: the most a backer gets back is the payout and the bonus, and the fee is never returned.
The For backers page goes through the same steps with example numbers.
What can go wrong
- USDC paid to sellers is spent. In the worst case, all of the payout and the bonus are paid out.
- The platform fee is never returned, and a pool cannot be cancelled: its deposit stays in it until it closes.
- If a pool’s price is higher than the market price, traders buy the token on the market and sell it into the pool first, until the pool is sold out.
- Software risk: the contract is not audited yet. Bugs or owner upgrades can cause loss. The owner can upgrade the program and change its rules, including access to funds. USDC can lose value or transfers can be restricted.
- The legal status of this is not clear yet and is different in each country. It is your job to check that it is legal where you live.
- The admin can pause the program. While it is paused, no sales go through, and the pool keeps counting down its time.
FAQ
Can the backer get the money back?
Only the part that holders do not sell into the pool. A pool cannot be cancelled, not even before it opens. When the pool closes, or as soon as it has bought all its tokens, everything left goes back to the backer, in one transaction that anyone can send and that can only pay the backer. The fee is never returned, and USDC paid to sellers does not come back.
Who can sell into the pool?
Anyone who holds the token, any time the pool is open, any amount up to what the pool still buys. During a chain’s hour, selling the same amount of each of the chain’s tokens together also pays each pool its bonus. A token whose pools are sold out is skipped, and even if only one token is left, it still pays its bonus.
Does a buyback pool change the token’s market price?
Nothing in the protocol sets the token’s market price. The pool pays its own fixed price to people who sell into it. The price on exchanges is set by the people who trade there, and DragHold does not promise any effect on it. If a pool’s price is higher than the market price, traders can buy the token on the market and sell it into the pool until the pool is sold out, and this can push the market price up towards the pool’s price.
Can several people back the same token?
Yes. Each deposit is its own pool, with its own backer, price, duration and vault. One person can also back the same token more than once. A seller chooses which of a token’s open pools to sell into, usually the one that pays most, and a chain sale uses one pool per token. Leftover USDC always goes back to that pool’s own backer.