A token with its own market built in. Send it, and you sold. Receive it, and you bought. No DEX, no pool, no router.
Demo with a vault of 1,000 SOL and 100M SELF on a constant-product curve. Real tokens set their own reserves, curve and fee at mint.
A token is a ledger. A market is a pool that someone has to create, fund and get listed. If nobody makes the pool, the token cannot trade. If the pool is pulled, the token is dead. SELF puts the market inside the token.
The creator mints the token with the market rules inside it: starting reserves, the curve, the fee, and where fees go.
Anyone sends tokens to the vault to sell, or SOL to the vault to buy. A wallet's Send button is the trading interface.
The transfer hook prices the trade from the vault's reserves and pays out in the same transaction. The vault keeps the fee, so liquidity grows with every trade.
Phantom, a multisig, a game, a smart contract. If it can transfer, it can trade. No app to open.
There is no separate LP position to pull. The reserves are part of the token's rules, set at mint and visible to everyone.
Every venue that lists the token sits on top of the same built-in market, so there is always a floor market to arbitrage against.
Back into the vault, to the creator, to holders, or split. Decided at mint, enforced by the token.
pools to create. Minting the token is the launch.
transaction to buy or sell, from any wallet.
venues inherit the same curve.
| Token + DEX pool | SELF | |
|---|---|---|
| Steps to launch | Mint, create pool, seed, lock LP, get listed | Mint |
| Where liquidity lives | A pool account someone controls | Inside the token |
| How you trade | Open a DEX, connect, approve, swap | Send |
| Can liquidity be pulled | Yes, unless locked by a third party | Only by the rules set at mint |
| Works inside other programs | Needs a router integration | Any transfer |
| Fees | To the pool's LPs | Wherever the token says |
Solana's Token-2022 standard lets a token run a program on every transfer. SELF makes that program a market maker.
Every SELF transfer calls the token's hook with the source, destination and amount. If the destination is the vault, the hook treats it as a sell; if SOL arrives at the vault, a matching instruction treats it as a buy. Any other transfer is a normal transfer.
Two program-owned accounts derived from the mint: one holds SOL, one holds tokens. Nobody has a key to them. The only way SOL leaves is a sell, priced by the curve.
Constant product by default (sol × tokens = k), with optional virtual reserves so a token can start from zero SOL like a bonding curve and grow into a deep market. The creator picks it once.
A transfer hook cannot move the tokens it is watching, so the hook never touches your transfer. It calls the vault program, which pays SOL from its own account. If that call fails, the whole transaction fails and your tokens never left.
Price impact depends on reserves. A tiny vault is a tiny market. The fee refills it over time; a big launch should seed it properly.
Token-2022 transfers need extra accounts. Phantom, Jupiter and most major wallets support this; some older tools don't.
Pricing and paying inside a transfer costs compute units. The curve math stays simple on purpose.
The hook and vault are programs. Audits and a capped first launch come before anyone's real money.
You never need one to buy or sell. DEX pools can still exist on top for people who like them, and they'll arbitrage against the built-in market, which keeps prices in line everywhere.
You sold them at the curve price and got SOL back. Sending to the vault is the sell button. Sending to any other address is a normal transfer.
Nobody. The vault is owned by the program and can only act by the rules set at mint. The creator chooses those rules once, and everyone can read them.
SELF is a standard and a launcher, not a coin. If a protocol fee exists, it is a small share of swap fees on tokens launched through it, shown at mint. There is no presale and nothing to buy to use it.
Transfer hooks only arrived with Token-2022, and the first uses were compliance rules and launch guards. Putting the whole market inside the hook needs the payout trick (the hook can't move the tokens it watches) and careful compute budgeting. It is possible now, and only on Solana.
Devnet first with a reference token, then a capped mainnet launch for a handful of creators, then the open launcher.
One email when devnet opens. Creators on the list get the first capped mainnet slots.