The Post-TGE 90-Day Playbook for Founders
TGE is a starting line that most teams treat as a finish line. The launch campaign ends, the team is exhausted, and the first month after listing quietly becomes the period that determines whether your token has a holder base or a rotating cast of traders. This playbook lays out the first 90 days as three distinct phases with different objectives.
TL;DR
- Days 1–14: stabilise. Depth, data, support, and a reporting cadence.
- Days 15–45: convert holders into users. This is the whole game.
- Days 46–90: prove a delivery rhythm and prepare the first unlock.
Days 1–14: Stabilise
The objective is not price. It is removing every avoidable reason for someone to leave.
- Verify listing surfaces. Contract address, logo, supply figures and socials correct on CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, block explorers and every DEX aggregator that lists you. Errors here generate scam accusations. See CMC and CoinGecko Listing.
- Monitor depth, not just price. Track depth at ±2% on the canonical pair and hold your market maker to the contract band.
- Staff support. Claim issues, bridge issues and wallet confusion peak in week one. Slow support in week one is remembered.
- Kill impersonators. Fake token contracts and fake support accounts appear within hours. Report them, and pin the canonical addresses everywhere.
- Set a public reporting cadence — a fixed weekly update, same day, same format — and start it in week one.
Days 15–45: Convert Holders Into Users
A holder who never uses the product is a seller waiting for a reason. This phase is about routing token holders into the core product loop.
- Segment your holders. Airdrop claimers, public-sale buyers, secondary-market buyers and long-tenured community members need different messages.
- Make the first product action trivially easy. One click from your announcement to a working flow, with no bridging detour if you can avoid it.
- Give the token a reason to be held that is real: fee access, governance over something that matters, staking tied to actual protocol revenue. Avoid inventing utility that the product does not need.
- Publish usage metrics alongside price-agnostic milestones so the community has something other than the chart to evaluate.
- Re-engage the quiet majority. Most holders never join Telegram. Email, on-chain messaging and the product interface reach people that Discord never will.
See Post-TGE Marketing and Retention Strategies for Web3.
Days 46–90: Rhythm and the First Unlock
By now the launch attention has fully decayed. Two things matter.
Establish a visible delivery rhythm. Ship something meaningful on a predictable schedule and report it in the same format each time. Predictability is the substitute for hype once hype is gone.
Prepare the first unlock properly. The first cliff is where many post-TGE charts break. Practical steps:
| Action | Timing before unlock |
|---|---|
| Publish the exact unlock size, recipients and schedule | 30 days |
| Confirm market-maker depth plan for the window | 21 days |
| Brief recipients on any voluntary lockup or OTC route | 21 days |
| Publish a reminder with the same numbers | 7 days |
| Post-unlock transparency note on what actually moved | 3 days after |
Surprise unlocks are punished far more than expected ones. See Crypto Vesting Schedules Explained.
What to Stop Doing
- Chasing new listings before the existing ones have real depth.
- Announcing partnerships that carry no user-visible change. See Partnership Announcement Playbook.
- Responding to price in public. Comment on delivery; leave price to the market.
- Running an incentive program with no end date and no measured retention.
Working With Metamoonshots
We work with teams through the post-TGE window specifically — reporting cadence, holder-to-user conversion, unlock communications and sustained marketing after the launch budget is spent. If you are inside your first 90 days, book a working session.
🔗 Related reading from the Metamoonshots Journal
FAQ
How long should post-TGE marketing budget last?
Plan for the post-launch period to consume a comparable share of budget to launch week itself, spread over the following quarter. Teams that spend everything on launch week have nothing left for the phase that determines retention.
Should we chase more exchange listings immediately?
Not until depth on existing venues is healthy. Fragmenting thin liquidity across more venues makes every venue look worse.
What metrics matter most in the first 90 days?
Depth at ±2%, holder count trend excluding dust, share of holders who performed a core product action, and week-over-week active users. Price is an output, not a metric you manage.
How do we handle a large drawdown in month one?
Keep the reporting cadence unchanged, avoid commenting on price, and ship the roadmap items you already committed to. Changing behaviour in response to price signals panic.