Author: kent
In recent years, the way cryptocurrencies issue tokens has been repeating the same problems:
Information asymmetry, bots racing to open, severe price fluctuations, project parties and a few players controlling pricing power, while the vast majority of users can never access a fair entry price.
The 'Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA)' proposed by Uniswap is providing a new answer to all of this.
CCA is not an 'innovative gameplay' of a certain project, but a set of on-chain native token issuance and liquidity initiation protocols for the entire industry.
It was released by the Uniswap team, and projects like Aztec were among the earliest teams to participate in testing and application.
This article will explain in a clear and intuitive way:
Why is CCA the new paradigm of on-chain token issuance?
How does it achieve fairness, resist bots, and avoid speculation?
What is the essential difference between CCA and Launchpad, IDO, and Pump.fun?
Why will project parties turn to CCA?
Gradually understand the core logic behind 'continuous settlement.'
First, why has the traditional token issuance model failed?
Today's token issuance methods are mainly divided into four categories, each with obvious flaws:
Launchpad——strong centralization, internal relationships determine everything
The platform decides:
Pricing
Allocation
Quota
Listing time
Users are always the last group to take over.
IDO / Fair Launch——price fluctuations are severe, snatched by bots
The biggest problem with IDO is:
Bots instantly sweep the pool at opening
Naturally lacks price discovery
Liquidity is extremely thin
Users can only buy at 'prices raised by bots'
Pump.fun——pure emotional carnival, does not produce price discovery
Pump.fun was originally positioned as an entertainment-style meme launch, but as many projects used it to issue tokens, the problems became more apparent:
No real value
No price discovery
Easily manipulable
Completely unsuitable for serious projects
Private placement & internal round——completely opaque
Internal pricing, discount rounds, with no market nature.
The market can hardly know the real supply and demand.
To summarize, traditional token issuance has not solved two fundamental problems:
❌ Price discovery is opaque
Pricing is either determined by a few people or by bots rushing to take over.
❌ Unhealthy liquidity launch
Prices surge and drop instantly at opening, making it difficult for retail investors to buy at reasonable prices.
Second, CCA needs to address these two issues
The core mission of CCA has only two points:
Fair, transparent, continuous price discovery
Let the market determine prices, not human manipulation.
Automatically establish Uniswap v4 liquidity pools with funds + tokens after the auction ends
Liquidity is no longer arbitrarily set by the project party but is determined by market auction results.
In other words:
Prices and liquidity are generated entirely on-chain, the whole process is verifiable, auditable, and uncontrollable.
Third, the core mechanism of CCA: each block is a small auction
The innovation of CCA lies in 'continuous'.
It is not a one-time auction, but rather a continuous auction cycle, with 'settlements' made in each block.
Let's break it down.
Fourth, the complete process of CCA (even beginners can understand)
First, project parties initialize parameters
Including:
How many tokens to sell (fixed total amount)
Auction duration (e.g., 7 days)
How many sold per block (e.g., 10,000 pieces)
Starting price
Optional modules: including ZK Passport, address verification, etc. (Aztec used this)
Second, user participation: only requires two inputs
How much ETH do you want to invest?
The highest price you are willing to pay (limit price)
Users can add bids at any time.
Third, 'Continuous settlement' occurs in every block
At the end of each block:
Collect all bids
Sort by the highest price users are willing to pay
Allocate the 'sellable tokens' of the current block from high to low
If it reaches 'a certain price' just exhausts the current block tokens
→ That price = this block's market clearing price (MCP)Everyone willing to pay ≥ MCP transacts at MCP
Uncompleted amounts will automatically roll into the next block to continue bidding
Thus:
The entire auction process resembles an ascending staircase, with prices rising block by block as more participants enter, but there will be no sudden surges and drops.
Fifth, example: three-day auction, continuous blocks, prices change with blocks
Assuming the project issues 90,000 tokens, auctioning for 3 days, 10,000 tokens per block.
The 1st block (#1001)
User's ETH highest price minimum token quantity A1 ETH$1.0010,000 B2 ETH$0.7515,000 C1 ETH$0.505,000 D2 ETH$0.258,000
Distribution logic:
Sort by price: A → B → C → D
Cumulative token: A's 10,000 reaches block supply
MCP = $1.00
Transaction: A fully completed, others not completed (can roll into the next block)
The 2nd block (#1002)
User's ETH highest price minimum token quantity B2 ETH$0.7515,000 C1 ETH$0.505,000 E1 ETH$0.601,666
Distribution logic:
Sort: E → B → C
Cumulative: E 1,666 → B 15,000 → total demand 16,666 > block supply 10,000
MCP = $0.75
Proportional distribution: E about 556 tokens, B about 9,444 tokens, C uncompleted
The 3rd block (#1003)
User's ETH highest price minimum token quantity C1 ETH$0.505,000 D2 ETH$0.258,000 F1 ETH$0.551,818
Distribution logic:
Sort: F → C → D
Cumulative: F 1,818 → C 5,000 → D 8,000
Block supply 10,000 → exceeding supply, allocated proportionally
MCP = $0.25
Transaction distribution: F 1,818, C 5,000, D remaining 3,182
Conclusion:
Each block independently settles
Uncompleted or low-priced bids can roll into the next block
Price changes by block, gradually discovering market equilibrium
Avoid sudden surges and drops, ensuring fairness
Therefore:
The earlier the bid → the lower the average transaction price
Price rises gradually with each block rather than surging instantly
No rush, as each block is recalculated once
This is the meaning of Continuous.
Sixth, the most critical step after the auction ends: automatically establishing Uniswap v4 pool
Auction proceeds ETH + remaining tokens will be automatically injected into Uniswap v4 pool:
Initial price = clearing price of the last block (market determined)
Liquidity depth = auction fundraising amount determines
There is no situation of 'being instantly absorbed by bots at opening'
This is the key to the entire CCA:
It is responsible not only for issuing tokens but also for 'establishing a healthy market after token issuance.'
Seventh, the core differences between CCA and other token issuance methods
Who decides the model price? Can it resist bots? Is volatility automatically pooled? Is it transparent? Launchpad platforms/projects generally have low resistance to IDO bots ❌ Project parties need to do it ❌ Pump.fun sentiment/bots ❌ extremely high resistance is generally CCA market (block by block) fully resists bots with mild changes block by block automatically v4 pool 100% on-chain public
CCA is the first to meet:
Fairness
Anti-manipulation
On-chain price discovery
Automatically establish deep liquidity
Achieved within the same set of protocols.
Eighth, why will more projects choose CCA in the future? (From the perspective of the project parties)
First, no need to set prices yourself, avoiding being criticized for 'setting high/low'
Prices are automatically formed by the market.
Project parties no longer need to bear 'pricing responsibility.'
Second, auction + liquidity launch is completed in one go
No need:
Manual pool establishment
Make market
Prevent bots
Manually stabilize the opening
CCA completes automatically.
A fairer community distribution
Not:
Internal round
Private discount
Whitelist
Bots rush
Only market supply and demand.
Fourth, healthier opening trends
Price discovery by block is countless times healthier than 'instant opening'.
Fifth, better compliance
Because the mechanism is transparent and uncontrollable, many project parties are actually more willing to adopt it.
Conclusion: CCA may be the default method for serious projects to issue tokens in the future
We once had:
ICO (centralized pre-sale)
IDO (thin pool + bots)
Fair launch (random/emotional)
Pump.fun (speculative focus)
But they all do not provide the combination of 'fair + transparent + anti-manipulation + automatic pool establishment.'
CCA is the first to achieve:
Prices are discovered by the market
Liquidity is established by the market
The entire process is transparent on-chain
Resist bots
Anti-manipulation
Verifiable
Auditable
If LBP (Balancer) was the 'fairer launch method' in 2021,
Then CCA will be the genuine 'fairer, on-chain native, scalable' upgrade version in 2025.
In the next 1-2 years, you will see more serious projects turning to CCA.
