How to stop sniper bots when you launch a token on Base

On baselaunch, buys in a coin's first 3 seconds pay a launch tax up to 98% in the launch second with no creator fee (99% of the buy including the 1% fee), and nothing after that. It makes buying the instant a coin appears expensive, but it is a speed bump, not a guarantee.

Numbers checked on chain on 20 October 2026.

The technical detail is in the docs.

How does the launch tax stop sniper bots on Base?

Sniper bots try to buy a new coin in the same instant it is created, before any person can react. The launch tax makes that instant expensive. It applies on top of the normal fees, to buys only, and falls in fourteen halving steps spread evenly over the 3 seconds window.

Base records time in whole seconds, so a buy on a coin with no creator fee pays one of these rates:

The tax is capped so that a buy always keeps part of what it spends after the trading fee, the creator fee and the tax. On a coin with a 10% creator fee, the launch-second tax is therefore at most 88%.

Sells and wallet-to-wallet transfers are never taxed. Each coin copies the tax start and window from the protocol settings when it is created. A later settings change never reaches a coin already trading.

Who is exempt from the launch tax?

The exemptions let you and your team buy at launch without paying the tax that bots pay.

• Your creator wallet. The wallet that creates the coin is exempt.
• Your fee wallet. The wallet that receives the coin's creator fees is exempt.
• Your opening buy. Because the creator is exempt, the opening buy made inside the launch transaction pays no launch tax.
• Up to 32 more wallets. A launch can name further exempt wallets, for example a team's own buying wallets.

The exemption list is fixed in the launch transaction. It cannot grow later, and nobody can edit it after the coin exists. Decide which wallets need it before you launch.

The tax is computed for the wallet that receives the tokens, not the wallet that sends the transaction. A buy that delivers tokens to a non-exempt wallet pays the tax even if an exempt wallet sent it.

Where does the launch tax go?

The launch tax is not burned. It is split between the protocol and the creator side exactly like the base trading fee, without a referrer part. At the current settings, the protocol share is 30% and the creator side is 70%. When the coin was launched through an app that registered a launch interface, that app receives 20% of the creator side. A coin created on baselaunch.app has no launch interface, so its creator keeps that part.

If you turn on buyback and lock, 50% of the creator part of the base fee, and of the launch tax on the curve, buys the coin back and locks it. The coins unlock over 5 years, the creator receiving 70% of each release and the protocol 30%. In practice, a bot that pays the tax in the first seconds funds your side of the coin.

Fees are credited to a fee escrow and claimed by the recipient. They are paid in the coin's pair asset, never converted to ETH.

How much of the supply does an opening buy take?

Your exempt opening buy is the only buy that can land before the tax window opens to everyone else. The curve price rises with every token bought, so the size of your opening buy decides how much supply you hold and what price the next buyer meets.

What a first buy receives on a fresh ETH-pair coin with the 1% trading fee, no creator fee and no launch tax:

The whole supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens starts on the bonding curve, with no presale and no team allocation. Traders can see a large creator holding on chain. A large opening buy is a choice with consequences for how traders read your coin.

Does the launch tax guarantee a launch without bots?

No. After 3 seconds, anyone can buy at the normal price, bots included. The tax makes the first seconds expensive; it does not decide who buys. A bot that waits until the tax reaches zero pays the same fees as any other buyer.

What the tax does is remove the advantage of being first in the launch second. Combined with an exempt opening buy and a short list of exempt team wallets, it gives you and your team a way to buy at launch without paying the tax that the first outside buyers face. What happens after that depends on the market, not on the contract.

Risks

• Meme coins are highly speculative and most lose their value. Nothing here is financial advice.
• The contracts have not been independently audited yet. An audit is part of our plan.
• Buys in the first 3 seconds pay a launch tax up to 98% in the launch second with no creator fee (99% of the buy including the 1% fee). Anyone who buys in that window, including your own supporters from a non-exempt wallet, pays it.
• Anyone can launch any name and image. The contract address is the only identity a coin has.
• The owner can redirect a coin's creator fees after a 3-day notice.
• Transactions on Base are final. Nobody, including baselaunch and the creator, can reverse a trade or return a loss.

Read the full launch protection rules in the docs.

Questions

Every cost is on fees, and what the owner can and cannot do is on security.

Meme coins are highly speculative and most lose their value. Nothing here is financial advice.

Last updated 2026-10-21