---
type: claim
domain: internet-finance
description: "Insert Coin Labs raised only $2,508 of $50K despite audited contracts, live mainnet game, and organic volume — showing coordination failure survives product quality"
confidence: experimental
source: "Rio, from Insert Coin Labs futardio launch data, 2026-03-05"
created: 2026-03-11
depends_on:
  - "futarchy adoption faces friction from token price psychology proposal complexity and liquidity requirements"
  - "MetaDAO is the futarchy launchpad on Solana where projects raise capital through unruggable ICOs governed by conditional markets creating the first platform for ownership coins at scale"
challenged_by:
  - "GambleFi PVP niche may have limited appeal independent of product quality, making the failed raise informational rather than structural"
  - "The $50K minimum threshold may have been poorly calibrated for the project's actual market size"
---

# futardio first-mover hesitancy persists even for projects with proven on-chain traction indicating the coordination problem is structural rather than informational

The standard explanation for futardio's first-mover hesitancy is informational: investors don't know enough about projects, so they wait for others to signal quality first. If this were correct, projects with verifiable on-chain traction should overcome hesitancy — they've already answered the information problem with live evidence.

Insert Coin Labs falsifies this. Their launch (2026-03-05) had unusually strong verifiable credentials for a permissionless raise:

- **Domin8 live on Solana mainnet** — not a demo, not a devnet prototype, a real game played by real people wagering real SOL
- **232 games played, 55.1 SOL in volume, +2.7 SOL net house gain** — measurable on-chain revenue, not projected metrics
- **Smart contracts audited** by @Excalead, with Honorable Mention at Solana Breakpoint 2025 — third-party technical validation
- **Zero marketing spend** — all traction was organic, ruling out manufactured engagement

Despite this, the raise closed in one day with $2,508 committed against a $50,000 minimum — a 5% fill rate. The project refunded.

This outcome is hard to explain informationally. The information that would normally reduce hesitancy — live product, audited contracts, organic volume, respected technical validation — was all present and publicly verifiable. Investors who waited for "someone else to go first" were waiting not for information but for a coordination signal: confirmation that enough others had already committed.

This reframes the first-mover hesitancy problem. It is not primarily a due diligence failure (insufficient project information) but a coordination failure (insufficient confidence that others will coordinate). The mechanism is closer to a bank-run equilibrium in reverse: each investor waits because they believe others are waiting, and the equilibrium tips to "nobody commits" even when the underlying asset is sound.

The policy implication is significant. Information-improvement interventions (better pitch decks, more metrics, third-party audits) cannot solve a coordination problem. Solutions must instead change the equilibrium mechanics: seeding mechanisms, commitment bonuses for early depositors, explicit social proof of early backers, or reputation systems that create coordination anchors.

The existing [[futarchy adoption faces friction from token price psychology proposal complexity and liquidity requirements]] claim documents aggregate hesitancy across futardio's first 2 days (2/34 ICOs succeeded). Insert Coin Labs adds a sharper data point: hesitancy persists even when typical information barriers are eliminated.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[futarchy adoption faces friction from token price psychology proposal complexity and liquidity requirements]] — documents the hesitancy pattern; this claim extends it with a higher-quality test case
- [[MetaDAO is the futarchy launchpad on Solana where projects raise capital through unruggable ICOs governed by conditional markets creating the first platform for ownership coins at scale]] — platform context and aggregate futardio statistics
- [[speculative markets aggregate information through incentive and selection effects not wisdom of crowds]] — coordination vs. information aggregation distinction

Topics:
- [[internet finance and decision markets]]
