Reserve mode

After this, you'll have launched a token on Pons with your launch supply held in a reserve only you can release, and you'll know the one number to fund.

Time needed: 10 min

You'll need:

A Ballistic account with the chain selector set to HOOD (Robinhood Chain)
ETH on Robinhood Chain in your funding wallet. The setup form tells you the exact amount before you fund.
Your token's name, symbol and image

Pons offers two launch modes: Reserve, described here, and Block-0. For the difference, see Launch modes.

What Reserve does

A Block-0 launch spreads your buys across many wallets. Reserve does the opposite: one custody wallet makes one buy at launch, and everything it acquires is parked in a liquidity position that the custody wallet owns. Nothing sits loose in trading wallets, nothing can be sniped out of them, and the position releases supply only when you sell or airdrop.

One buy, one wallet. Your launch supply is bought in the launch block by a single custody wallet.
A parked position. The supply is held in a one-sided Uniswap V4 position on Robinhood Chain. It is not for sale until you say so.
Release on demand. Selling, DCA and airdrops pull from the reserve and put the rest straight back.
A dev buy on top. Your deployer wallet also buys in the launch block. That supply stays in the deployer wallet, outside the reserve.

The five steps

Create the token

Go to Create, keep Pons selected, and enter the name, symbol and image. A dev wallet is filled in for you; keep it or pick one from your Wallets. Press Upload Metadata.

Configure the launch

Pick the pair asset, set the trade tax, and enter the buy amount and dev buy. The form shows "You'll need X ETH in your funding wallet". That X is the whole cost of the launch. Press Continue.

Fund

The funding page shows one figure next to your funding wallet address. Send at least that much ETH to the address, wait for the balance to show green, and press Fund.

Launch

Press Launch once. Ballistic creates the token, makes the dev buy and the reserve buy in the launch block, and parks the supply. The token page opens when it is done, usually in under a minute.

Manage from the token page

Sell, run DCA, airdrop and withdraw from there. See After launch.

The rest of this page explains each choice.

Configuring the launch

Pair asset

Your token trades against ETH by default. You can pair it against a Robinhood tokenised stock or ETF instead, such as NVDA or SPY. Ballistic still funds and pays you in ETH: it buys the stock for you at launch and converts back when you sell. Leave it on ETH unless you want the stock pairing on purpose.

Trade tax

Every buy and sell on your token pays Pons' 1% curve fee plus your creator tax. The creator tax defaults to 1%, so traders pay about 2% in total by default, and you can set it up to 9%. The tax is set once at launch and can't be changed afterwards.

Your creator fees build up in Pons' escrow; claim them from the token page (see After launch). After the token graduates, you also receive 70% of the pool's hook fee.

Route fees to holders sends your creator fee to your holders instead of to you. It deploys a distributor after launch.

Buy amount

The buy amount is the ETH your custody wallet spends at launch, and it decides how much of the supply ends up in your reserve. The token launches on a bonding curve that sells 71.43% of the supply in total; the other 28.57% seeds the trading pool when the curve completes. Your dev buy lands first, then the reserve buy.

Rough share of supply for a single buy on a fresh ETH-paired curve:

Buy amount	Approximate share of supply
0.1 ETH	about 5.6%
0.25 ETH	about 13%
0.5 ETH	about 23%
1 ETH	about 37%
2 ETH	about 54%
about 4.29 ETH	71.43%, the whole curve

The curve completes at 4.2 ETH of buying net of fees, about 4.29 ETH at the default fees. A buy that reaches that completes the curve in the launch block: the token graduates to its Uniswap V4 pool immediately and any surplus ETH is refunded to your custody wallet, so you can't overpay. On a stock pairing, Pons sets the ceiling per asset and it varies with the stock; it is roughly the same value in ETH terms.

Dev buy

The dev buy is what your deployer wallet buys in the launch block. It must be above zero on Pons, in Reserve and Block-0 alike: the launch transaction refuses a zero dev buy, so set at least a small amount such as 0.01 ETH. The dev buy is not part of the reserve; it stays in the deployer wallet and you sell it from the Wallets panel like any other wallet.

Don't change the dev buy after you have funded. The deployer was funded for the amount you set at setup.

Wallets and funding method

Reserve uses exactly one buy wallet, so there is nothing to configure. Funding is Direct, from your funding wallet. (Other Robinhood Chain launches can also fund through Bridge, ETH from Base; see Fund your launch.)

Funding: the one number

The setup form and the funding page show the same figure, and it is the entire cost of the launch. It includes:

your buy amount and your dev buy
a small custody reserve, shown in the breakdown, that pays for parking the supply and for your first sells. Whatever isn't spent stays in the custody wallet and comes back when you withdraw
gas for the launch and the funding transfers
Pons' creation fee (0.0005 ETH at the time of writing; Ballistic reads the live value from Pons)

For example, a 0.5 ETH buy with a 0.05 ETH dev buy asks for 0.5738 ETH. Hover the info icon next to the figure on the funding page to see the breakdown.

Send at least that amount of ETH on Robinhood Chain to the funding wallet address shown on the page. Anything extra stays in your funding wallet. When the balance turns green, press Fund. Ballistic moves the buy plus the custody reserve to the custody wallet and the dev buy plus gas to the deployer, then the Launch button unlocks.

Ballistic takes no fee on funding or on the launch itself. If you fund a launch with sale proceeds from an earlier launch, those proceeds pay the platform fee first. See Fees.

After launch

The token page shows the token, its wallets and the reserve.

Selling. Use the sell panel or the Quick Sell on a wallet. Sizing is a percentage of the total supply. A Reserve sell pulls that amount out of the position, sells it on the curve before graduation or on the Uniswap V4 pool after, and sends the ETH to your custody wallet. The rest of the supply stays parked. DCA and TWAP works the same way, one release per tick.

Airdrops. Airdrop a percentage of the supply to any address from the token page. The amount is pulled from the reserve and sent directly, and the position is re-parked afterwards. Airdrops carry an 5% fee in tokens, see Fees.

Withdrawing. ETH from your sells collects in the custody wallet. Withdraw it to any external address from the Withdraw dialog. Withdrawals from a worker wallet carry the standard 5% fee.

Creator fees. Your creator fees build up in Pons' escrow for your creator wallet. Claim them from the Claim Creator Rewards card on the token page. Fees are held per creator wallet and per pair asset, so one claim covers all your Pons tokens on that pair.

Things not to do

Don't press Launch twice. If you refresh mid-launch, the launch is still running. Wait for the token page.
Don't edit the dev buy after funding. The deployer holds exactly what you set at setup.
Don't export the deployer key and use it elsewhere before launch. The deployer signs the launch and owns the creator fee routing. Moving it mid-flow breaks fee claims.
Don't send funds to the custody or deployer wallets directly. Fund only the funding wallet address shown on the funding page.

What can go wrong

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Fund stays disabled	The funding wallet holds less than the figure shown	Send the difference. The figure is the full cost; nothing is charged later.
"Pons requires a non-zero dev buy"	The dev buy was left at 0	Set a dev buy above zero in the setup and try again.
Launch failed with "network busy" or "missing revert data"	The chain's RPC was rate-limited during the launch	Retry from the funding page. Your funds are still in your wallets.
A sell fails right after a curve-completing launch	The trading pool is created a few seconds after graduation	Wait a few seconds and sell again.
The token page shows supply in a single wallet, not a reserve	The park step failed after the buy	Contact support. The supply is safe in your custody wallet and can be parked for you.
I chose a stock pair and got less supply than the table shows	Stock-paired curves are priced in the stock, and buying the stock moves its pool	Expect a little less on thin stocks. ETH pairing tracks the table closely.