Curv-y launch
The most hyped launch in DeFi was CRV - the native governance token of Curve.fi, a liquidity pool for stable coin trading. The launch did not go as expected. The Curve team had prepared the contracts to be deployed on the Ethereum main chain and were ready to deploy. However, there was a twist as one of the community members "0xc4ad" went ahead, paid ~20 ETH ($8,000) himself, and deployed it on the Ethereum main chain. All this so he could be the first one to "farm" curve (CRV) tokens. In hindsight, it was worth it as there were ~50,000 CRV tokens that were pre-farmed, worth almost ~$2 million.
Why does it matter?
The incident brings back the age-old question of fair launch. "Fair" in terms of the launch means there is no information asymmetry and access to "farm" or "mine" token.
The basic premise of using blockchain is "don't trust, verify." Here, a twitter user Frank first reported the deployment of CRV token on the blockchain. He verified it on the blockchain and asked the Curve team about the authenticity, to which they rubbished it as "a scam." A few hours later, the team took a U-turn and accepted the deployed contracts, and the Curve token is live. It now has more than $1 billion in total value locked, farming CRV tokens.
The Big Picture
As long as the code is open-source and available for all to see, which it was, there is no information asymmetry. Few smart brains figured out the deployed contracts on Ethereum and farmed the hyped CRV tokens before a UI was released. Their risk paid off at launch. Don't trust (even the team), always verify. Code is the law. In fact, I sense going ahead, we will see a few open-source projects being launched before their announced date.