Secondary token markets SecondSwap on Thursday launched its mainnet on Ethereum with the aim of providing a more efficient market for illiquid assets by eliminating intermediaries and establishing fair token value in the open market.

SecondSwap uses a liquidity routing algorithm that optimizes trade execution and minimizes price slippage to ensure secure and scalable trading experiences for buyers and sellers.

“By introducing a decentralized order book-style exchange, we are bringing transparency to token secondary markets,” said Kanny Lee, founder of SecondSwap, in an email to CoinDesk.

“Our platform provides visibility into buy and sell orders, leveraging price discovery mechanisms such as market depth and liquidity profiling. Through seamless wallet integration, we ensure proof of control for sellers and proof of funds for buyers, enhancing security and trust.”

Secondary markets for locked tokens refer to platforms or mechanisms where tokens that are under some form of lock-up or vesting schedule can be traded before they are fully released or unlocked.

These markets provide a way for holders of locked tokens to gain liquidity, meaning they can convert their holdings into cash or other assets before the tokens are fully unlocked — giving early liquidity to sellers and the chance of gaining assets at a discount for buyers.

SecondSwap has introduced a bid campaign to facilitate price discovery and enhance liquidity in early weeks, allowing traders to set their own prices and support matching between buyers and sellers once the buy/sell flow feature is enabled.

Traders link their wallets, accessing a list of locked tokens that they can express an interest in buying by setting their preferred price target. Participants will be notified when inventory is available at prevailing prices, ensuring early adopters can engage with new opportunities as they emerge.

The platform plans to expand to the Solana network in the coming months, a feat Lee says could unlock over $500 million in volume.

“Locked token liquidity represents billions of dollars of untapped value. The impact of unlocking this liquidity cannot be understated. On Solana alone, even activating just 10% of dormant liquidity, could inject over $500 million in actionable volume,” Lee said.

“It’s definitely one of the drivers for partnering with Solana at the outset. When coupled with the impact that SecondSwap’s vesting mechanism can offer memecoins — to reduce circulating supply — the Solana partnership will continue to flourish and benefit the wider market.”

HONG KONG — CoinDesk Indices launched two index products tracking the price gyrations of memecoins and the top hundred tokens by market capitalization, meeting demand from institutional and professional investors who seek upside in different crypto sectors, the firm announced at Consensus Hong Kong.

The CoinDesk Memecoin Index will track the largest fifty memecoins by market capitalization — a list that includes dogecoin (DOGE), shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI), among others — while the CoinDesk 100 serves as a single benchmark for the top hundred tokens by market cap.

“CoinDesk Memecoin Index responds to traders’ need for liquidity and volatility while the CoinDesk 100 provides one-stop access to the most liquid tokens,” said Chris Tyrer, VP, head of institutional at Bullish.

“We are thrilled to continue providing our clients access to the broader digital asset landscape, complementing these indices with our robust regulatory framework,» he added.

The memecoin index is equal-weighted and will be rebalanced monthly, ensuring the representation of emerging and established tokens. Similarly, the CoinDesk 100 Index is market cap-weighted and provides a single reference point for structured products, ETFs, and risk management strategies.

Crypto exchange Bullish has listed perpetual futures on both indices, allowing traders to gain exposure to these benchmarks with deep liquidity and around-the-clock trading.

This launch builds on the success of the CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 perpetuals, which have collectively driven over $13.5 billion in volume, with the CoinDesk 80 index perpetual future trading millions daily since January 2025.

The era of memecoins as a supposedly fair trading opportunity is «unquestionably over,» according to Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures.

In a post on X, Carter argued that memecoins—tokens with little to no utility beyond speculative trading—were initially attractive because they appeared to offer an even playing field for retail investors. However, with recent scandals such as LIBRA coin, the market has been overtaken by insiders, prelaunch deals, and bot-driven trading, leaving everyday traders at a disadvantage.

“The entire premise of memecoins was that they were ‘fair launch’ opportunities where retail had just as good a shot as funds and VCs,” Carter wrote. “That was exposed as a lie—the casino wasn’t fair.”

Carter pointed to the launch of Milei’s LIBRA coin, which opened at a $1 billion market cap before briefly spiking to $4 billion, as an example of how insiders now dominate the market. Such unfair launches, he said, have turned memecoins into a casino where the house overwhelmingly wins.

Read more: Libra Token’s Co-Creator Claimed He Paid Argentinian President Milei’s Sister

While Carter thinks that the recent trading frenzy that started since the U.S. President Donald Trump started his TRUMP memecoin is over, he did note that the industry isn’t going to disappear. Rather, there will still likely be a few new token launches and some winners, but the «meta is done.»

As confidence in memecoins fades, Carter expects regulators to take action against insider trading in the sector. “Just because memecoins probably aren’t securities doesn’t mean there’s no liability associated with trading on inside information,” he said, predicting that blockchain transaction histories will lead to future law enforcement actions.

‘What maturation looks like’

Looking ahead, Carter believes the market will shift toward more sustainable and fair token launches.

High pre-launch valuations have become less attractive, and projects are adapting by offering lower initial valuations to attract buyers. Platforms like Echo, which enforce accreditation and KYC, are likely to gain popularity for prelaunch fundraising, helping projects distribute tokens more fairly.

Meanwhile, Carter expects increased legitimacy in DeFi tokens. With the SEC crafting clearer rules for token issuance, he sees a future where tokens can openly generate and return capital to users.

“The trade of the next few years is simply assessing the fundamentals of these tokens and buying those that trade at reasonable valuations relative to their real or implied cashflows,” he said.

While some traders may lament the end of the memecoin gold rush, Carter argues that the market is simply maturing. “The pain of disillusionment is real, but ridding ourselves of the cancerous memecoin sector—which was in hindsight tremendously unfair—is a good development overall,” he wrote.

Read more: Will Argentinian President Milei’s Crypto ‘Fiasco’ Be a Deathblow for Memecoin Craze?

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.