Public Sale

A public sale is the part of a fundraising in which tokens, or sometimes shares, are offered to the general public rather than to selected investors. In crypto it typically follows private and pre-sale rounds sold at lower prices to funds and insiders, and may run on the project's own website, through an initial exchange offering or through an initial decentralised offering on a launchpad. Terms usually include a fixed price or auction, a cap per buyer, a whitelist of approved participants and a schedule for when tokens unlock. Buyers often receive their tokens at the token generation event. Because earlier buyers paid less and may sell once unlocked, and because many such sales raise securities-law questions, public sales carry high risk. Also see initial coin offering.