The role of Premarket access in Defi

Crypto traders are exploring premarket trading, an OTC service allowing early access to new tokens before they launch.

Almost everyone in crypto knows the power of ‘being early’, with many traders using bots to find brand new tokens to ape into.

But there’s another way to be early, and that’s to get into a coin before it officially launches.

From Ethereum to Polkadot, each blockchain has developed its own way of offering this early access, presales and ICOs are one way to be early, but TON (The Open Network) is using another solution – premarkets.

Premarket trading is an OTC (over-the-counter) service that allows investors to buy and sell new tokens at expected prices and quantities before the tokens go live. This means that people can buy and sell early, usually at a competitive price point. 

What’s the premarket on TON all about?

The TON blockchain introduced a “premarket” phase for certain tokens, allowing early access to assets before their official public release. This approach enables users to acquire tokens at a very early stage, often at favorable terms, ahead of broader market availability.

Here’s the core idea: instead of waiting for new assets to be fully listed, select users can start acquiring them, helping set the initial market value based on early trading.

For instance, players of the viral clicker game Notcoin, got premarket access to their NOT, a few weeks before it went live. This gave players the chance to provisionally sell their tokens in case they wanted to cash in straight away or accumulate more, if they felt bullish about the future of NOT.

The Notcoin developers allowed anyone who had mined more than 10 million coins, to have premarket access and buy an NFT that could later be redeemed for the actual tokens, once they went live.

The problem with Premarkets on TON

After the success of Notcoin on TON, various other mini-apps have used a premarket feature. But currently, to get access to these premarkets, users have to be already engaged and using the app.

This creates a fragmented market, and therefore limits the amount of participation and speculation around a token and it leaves investors confused or left out of what could be the next big thing on TON.

What’s the answer?

Elluminex, a new TON-based DeFi hub in the making, has a solution.

As part of their ecosystem, they have an OTC premarket platform on TON. This will grant users early access to new token projects before they are listed on major exchanges. This premarket access creates an opportunity for users to explore and invest in all the new projects during their formative stages, allowing them to potentially get the best bargains before the tokens go live on exchanges.

This means that while most CEX users (people not using Elluminex) will have to wait until the token goes live to trade it, those using DeFi on TON will be able to skip the queue and buy new tokens, often at a more competitive price than what they might find post-launch.

This is a huge benefit for project owners as well as holders, since it will help TON users to find out about their project, increasing interest, engagement, and, hopefully, positive price action.

For more information, visit the Elluminex website or join the community on X and Telegram.