Introduction
Fair launch is a protocol by which minters/prospective buyers can bid on the price of an NFT they are willing to pay in a range that is determined by the creator.
The Fair Launch Protocol is being deprecated and will be receiving no updates/support moving forward.
Prerequisites
Before starting this journey, you'll need to install and understand how to operate a handful of developer tools.
Developer Tooling Required
Ensure you have recent versions of git, node, yarn and ts-node installed:
We recommend confirming these tools are working before proceeding further. Some sensible tests are running the following commands:
$ git version
git version 2.31.1
$ node --version
v14.17.0
$ yarn --version
1.22.11
$ ts-node --version
v10.2.1
The specific version numbers don't matter that much, but make sure you're running something recent. The more important thing is confirming these tools are installed and on your system PATH correctly.
The Fair Launch Command Line Tool
Creating and controlling a Fair Launch is typically done through the Metaplex command line tool, currently distributed as source code in a GitHub repository.
You can clone this repository anywhere you like, but the recommended practice is:
git clone https://github.com/metaplex-foundation/deprecated-clis.git ~/metaplex-foundation/deprecated-clis
If you use a different location, you'll need to adjust for it in subsequent instructions.
You also need to install the project's node/npm dependencies. The recommended way of doing this is:
$ yarn install --cwd ~/metaplex-foundation/deprecated-clis/
Future versions of this tooling will be "npx runnable". For now though, ts-node is recommended for most users.
After ensuring ts-node is installed and cloning the repo run the following commands to confirm the command line tool is operating correctly:
$ ts-node ~/metaplex-foundation/deprecated-clis/src/candy-machine-cli.ts --version
0.0.2
Solana Tooling Required
The Fair Launch was built by Metaplex (and Solana) to operate on the Solana blockchain.
To work with it effectively you will need to understand tools and practices from that ecosystem.
To get started, we recommend you begin by:
- Reading the Solana Command-line Guide
- Installing the Solana Command-line Tools
- And practice with the examples they provide in their documents.
devnet for the win
The Solana devnet serves as a playground for anyone who wants to take Solana for a test drive, as a user, token holder, app developer, or NFT publisher. NFT publishers should target devnet before going for mainnet.
We highly recommend making devnet your default Solana url
solana config set --url https://api.devnet.solana.com
Create devnet wallet (for testing)
Read the fine manual
solana-keygen help new
If you're me, you'll redact your mnemonic, store it somewhere safe and take advantage of the --outfile flag.
$ solana-keygen new --outfile ~/.config/solana/devnet.json
Generating a new keypair
For added security, enter a BIP39 passphrase
NOTE! This passphrase improves security of the recovery seed phrase NOT the
keypair file itself, which is stored as insecure plain text
BIP39 Passphrase (empty for none):
Wrote new keypair to ~/.config/solana/devnet.json
=====================================================================
pubkey: 7zMqBkHowtpEC8iayNmCoT42T8dKjikzmTbZX5aNJbhJ
=====================================================================
Save this seed phrase and your BIP39 passphrase to recover your new keypair:
# REDACTED
=====================================================================
We also recommend making devnet your default keypair:
solana config set --keypair ~/.config/solana/devnet.json
Fund devnet wallet
To get started, read the fine manuals in the help system
solana help config,
solana help balance and
solana help airdrop
If you're me, you're confirming your config right now to ensure you're on devnet, because we're going to rely on this to make subsequent command line invocations simpler from here forward. Here's how you check it:
$ solana config get
Config File: ~/.config/solana/cli/config.yml
RPC URL: https://api.devnet.solana.com
WebSocket URL: wss://api.devnet.solana.com/ (computed)
Keypair Path: ~/.config/solana/devnet.json
Commitment: confirmed
And here's how you can fund that wallet:
$ solana balance # check your initial balance
0 SOL
$ solana airdrop 2 # request funds
Requesting airdrop of 2 SOL
Signature: 2s8FE29f2fAaAoWphbiyb5b4iSKYWznLG64w93Jzx8k2DAbFGsmbyXhe3Uix8f5X6m9HRL5c6WB58j2t2WrUh88d
2 SOL
$ solana balance # confirm your balance
2 SOL
The solana airdrop command is sometimes unreliable. If the command doesn't work, you can use the airdrop tool at https://solfaucet.com.