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Introducing Runner Protocol

· 4 min read
Runner Protocol
Runner Protocol
Core Team

Token launches on Solana are broken. The current landscape is dominated by bonding curve platforms where early participants gain structural advantages, bots front-run human buyers, and creators have limited control over how their tokens enter the market. The result is a system that rewards speed over conviction and insiders over the broader community.

Runner Protocol is building a different approach.

Fair Price Discovery with Continuous Clearing Auctions​

Runner Protocol uses Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA) -- the same mechanism designed by Uniswap for fair token launches -- adapted for Solana's high-throughput environment.

In a CCA, there is no bonding curve and no first-come advantage. Instead:

  • All participants pay the same clearing price. Whether you bid in the first slot or the last, if your bid is in-range, you pay the same price as everyone else.
  • The market sets the price. The clearing price is computed as the highest price where all available supply can be sold. It is purely a function of aggregate demand.
  • No front-running. Because all bids at or above the clearing price are treated equally, there is no advantage to being faster. Bots and humans compete on conviction, not latency.
  • Gradual supply release. Tokens unlock over time according to a configurable schedule, giving the market time to discover fair value rather than dumping all supply at once.

How It Works​

A creator configures their token and auction parameters -- token name, supply, duration, floor price, and allocation splits -- through a guided wizard. Three on-chain transactions create the token mint (using Token-2022 with MetadataPointer), initialize escrows, and start the auction.

Bidders participate by specifying a max price (the most they are willing to pay) and a budget (how much capital to commit). If their max price is at or above the clearing price, their bid is active and fills at the clearing price. If below, they can withdraw at any time.

When enough capital is raised to meet the graduation threshold, the auction settles: proceeds automatically seed a Raydium CPMM liquidity pool with permanently burned LP tokens, and bidders claim their allocated tokens.

Everything is on-chain. No off-chain servers, no centralized custody, no admin keys that can freeze or redirect funds.

What Makes This Different​

Trustless from mint to market. The entire lifecycle -- token creation, auction, settlement, and liquidity pool seeding -- executes through on-chain programs. Mint authority is renounced after settlement. LP tokens are burned. There is no privileged party that can intervene after launch.

Designed for fairness. The single clearing price per slot eliminates the information asymmetry that plagues bonding curves. You do not need to guess when to buy or worry about slippage -- the mechanism handles price discovery.

Permanent liquidity. Unlike launches where teams can pull liquidity, Runner burns LP tokens during settlement. The initial trading pool is permanent and non-removable.

Current Status​

Runner Protocol is currently live on Solana Devnet. The CCA V2 smart contract and Launchpad orchestrator have been deployed and tested with full lifecycle coverage -- from token creation through auction, graduation, settlement, and pool creation.

We are actively testing, iterating, and preparing for mainnet. The codebase is open source, and we welcome feedback from the community.

What's Next​

  • Continued devnet testing -- Stress-testing with diverse auction configurations and edge cases
  • Community feedback -- We want to hear from creators and bidders about the experience
  • Security review -- Comprehensive auditing before any mainnet deployment
  • Mainnet launch -- When testing and review are complete, Runner will go live on Solana mainnet

We are building Runner Protocol because we believe token launches should be fair, transparent, and trustless. If that resonates with you, follow along as we build in public.

Runner Protocol is pre-launch software on Solana Devnet. It has not been audited by a third-party security firm. Use at your own risk on devnet. Do not send mainnet funds.