What are Internet Capital Markets? Working, Definition, Benefits, Roles and How They Are Transformin

In the crypto world, the spotlight moves swiftly from one appealing narrative to the next newest genre or project. The latest to grab all the attention is Internet Capital Markets (ICM).

ICM is a unique new capital market system based entirely on blockchain, enabling creators, ideators, and developers to raise funds for their ideas or projects directly from the community by issuing tokens.

ICM, along with its centrepiece Launchcoin, is touted as the next big thing in the cryptocurrency world after the DeFi phenomenon. Launchcoin has delivered a 20x surge in just a few days of its launch, in May 2025, with a market cap of $123 million at the time of writing.

Investors are wondering if ICM is just a flash in the pan and a speculative wave, or whether it will be instrumental in shaping the future of capital markets and cryptocurrencies. How does ICM work, and what are the benefits of this digital finance platform for the average crypto investor? Wrap your head around all of this and more in our comprehensive blog on ICM - the most compelling crypto genre of the season.

What are Internet Capital Markets (ICM)?

Internet Capital Markets (ICM) is transforming the way internet-native projects raise funding, by enabling a more open and accessible investment landscape. ICMs aim to create a global, permissionless market where anyone can launch a token representing a project, idea, or even a meme, and others can buy and trade these tokens.

ICM aims to make redundant the compliance-heavy nature of traditional capital markets by replacing traditional fundraising routes such as banks and Venture Capitalists with retail investors from across the world who can fund a crypto project created upon an idea simply by clicking a button. This community-driven approach to raising capital could improve overall capital efficiency, speed of mobilising capital, and participation in projects of high utility.

ICM also creates a robust ecosystem for creators and innovators who otherwise may not have the technical expertise to float tokens and spin off a crypto project from their simple idea. It gives innovators easy and rapid access to capital, leveraging the tenets of blockchain and tokenisation, while doing away with the often tedious mandates involved in traditional capital raising routes.

While ICM is a relatively new concept with regulatory uncertainty and the potential for speculation and market bubbles, it shows tremendous promise in its ease of mobilising capital from those who have to those who need it. It amalgamates blockchain, capital markets and tokenisation, benefits all stakeholders in the grid.

As of May 2025, the total market capitalization of ICM tokens is approximately $427 million, with Believe.app accounting for $350 million of the pie alone.

How Do Internet Capital Markets Work?

Internet capital market platforms like Pump.Fun and Believe.app lets builders/innovators launch tokens for their apps, ideas, or projects using a simple bot system. These tokens are tradable and open for anyone to invest in, working as tools of rapid crowdfunding.

As the buzz around projects or ideas increases, so does the demand for their native tokens and the market capitalisation of the ICM project. The funds invested by retail investors in the project’s tokens fuel the project's development, community rewards and more.

Instead of raising capital from VCs or banks, developers leverage social media and community engagement to attract investors from around the globe, unconstrained by geographies to back the idea financially, without the compliances, mandates and delays often associated with traditional channels of raising capital.

Believe.app is the primary platform ushering in the surge of Internet Capital Markets. Founded by Ben Pasternak in January 2025, Believe.app is powered by its native token, Launchcoin.

It allows any creator, ideator or developer to create an idea and turn it into a tradeable token – all using a simple tweet. This crowdfunding platform just requires the developer or creator to post ‘$TICKER + @launchcoin’ on the X platform, setting the bot in motion to mint tokens on Solana in just minutes. This automated coding makes it a breeze for creators who aren’t technologically equipped to float crypto tokens. The token goes live on Solana, the preferred chain for ICM projects because of its low fees and fast transactions. Once the tokens are floated, investors resonating with your idea can instantly fund it by buying the tokens.

One of the milestones in a project’s journey on the Believe.app is graduation, which is triggered when the token’s market cap reaches $100,000. At this point, the liquidity of the tokens is significantly boosted through integrations with liquidity pools or Meteora pools on the Solana chain.

Builders/ideators earn 50% of all trading fees, with the remaining half going to Believe.app. These fees are time-locked to align long-term incentives and discourage early abandonment. As a project gains traction and trading volume grows, developers are rewarded with a share of the fees, encouraging them to build real, valuable products.

Here are some statistics to show just how fast Believe.app and Launchcoin have grown since their launch in January 2025:

• A market cap of over $123.4 million, breaking the $200 million price ceiling in May 2025
• Over 9,845 tokens created
• 190,000+ active traders    
• 300,000 + transactions executed
• Launchcoin clocked in 100x gains in days

Launchcoin itself is curated to be more than just a transactional token on the Believe.app. Here are some of its utilities:

• Launchcoin holders are entitled to a portion of every launch and trade fees generated on the platform.
• Holders/stakers of launchcoin can enjoy airdrop perks and whitelisted spots
• From fees, functionalities, feature rollouts and more, launchcoin holders have governance and voting rights on all platform decisions.

Key Benefits of Internet Capital Markets (ICM) for Investors and Businesses

The opportunities and benefits that ICM offers to both capital providers and recipients are numerous. In a time when the venture capital sector is crowded with registration requirements, investment restrictions, and compliance guidelines, ICM provides straightforward and hassle-free access to capital for innovators and creators. On the other side, investors with available capital can access a wide range of investment options without needing to adhere to lengthy mandates or compliance procedures.

From a broader perspective, ICM has the potential to genuinely revolutionise capital markets, bringing in an era of smooth investment and capital mobilisation at the click of a button.

Let’s take a closer look at the several benefits for all stakeholders involved in ICM:

1. Global Capital Access 24/7

Unlike traditional capital and stock markets, ICMs operate on the global blockchain network, a permissionless public domain that runs 24/7. This global, open, and continuous nature of ICM markets makes raising capital quick, inclusive, and very easy. The restrictions of traditional channels, including time, place, and process, are all irrelevant in ICM, thereby truly revolutionising the global capital markets space.

2. No Tech Expertise Needed

Many times, creators and innovators may not be adept at the technical expertise needed to develop an on-chain token, deploy smart contracts and get a blockchain project up and running. Thankfully, ICM’s innovative features allow creators to launch smart contracts and tokens through a simple social media post, leaving the coding and tech to a bot. This technological roadblock for innovators looking to seek capital is eliminated by the ease that ICM platforms like Believe.app offer.

3. Capital Markets Not In The Hands of Few Anymore

ICM ushers in a new era of raising capital involving no gatekeeping by venture capital firms, allowing any retail investor worldwide with capital to access the capital markets at the click of a button. Traditional capital markets involve detailed processes & paperwork and several rounds of investments through venture capitalist firms to garner investment. 

4. Quick Concept/Idea Validation

Innovators and creators also benefit from immediate idea validation through ICM by putting out their idea and token in the open public domain. A rapid capital inflow is indicative of the plausibility of the idea or concept. This usually happens within a few hours or days. Traditionally, a proof of concept of idea validation would take innovators weeks or even months.

5. Retail/Small-Scale Investment Possible

ICM allows individual investors to invest small amounts, which would otherwise be impossible through traditional capital markets. Venture capitalists or even IPOs in the stock market have minimum investment amounts set in place. What’s more, retail investors stand to cash in on early breakthrough ideas, benefiting from significant, multi-fold returns if the project succeeds.

6. Investment is Easily Tradable

One of the best features of ICM is that investments, however small or large, can be easily traded or liquidated in the open market without any lock-in period or penalties should a token holder feel like withdrawing from a particular project. Even in such a case, the innovator or developer is not negatively impacted, as there is another investor in the public domain who is ready to buy the tokens, maintaining the status quo for the project in question.

7. Milestone-Based Rewards System

ICM tokens follow a milestone-based system, wherein each token starts with a limited supply and higher transaction fees. This setup helps build early value, discourages short-term speculation, and protects against pump-and-dump activity. As the token gains traction and reaches specific market cap milestones, it gradually unlocks new features, including increased visibility on the platform, access to broader distribution, and performance-based rewards for the creator. This milestone-based system encourages builders to focus on long-term growth and community engagement rather than short-term hype.

The Role of ICM in Revolutionising Digital Finance

Decentralised digital funding is rapid, simple, and genuinely inclusive for everyone. This emerging blockchain niche holds the potential to revolutionise how we invest, where we invest and how easily we invest. By empowering ideators and creators to support their ideas with crowd-sourced funding, Internet Capital Markets are igniting innovation like never before.

Another breakthrough feature in ICM that is transforming the ease of tokenization is the integration with social media platforms. Social media users can launch a token simply by posting in a specific format and tagging the bot to kickstart the coding process. The token is automatically deployed with a bonding curve to set initial pricing. Early on, supply is limited, and transaction fees are high to build value and deter pump-and-dump behaviour. As the token hits market cap milestones, it unlocks greater visibility and rewards for the creator.

ICM leverages the tenets of blockchain along with the ease of crowd-funding internet-native projects by bringing investors and creators together, with minimal regulatory compliance and mandates. These open marketplaces offer numerous benefits to investors and ideators alike, fueling the rapid deployment of money and rapid usage of invested capital.

Limitations of Internet Capital Markets

Despite its compelling success, ICM is not free from limitations, risks and even criticism. There is no doubt that this niche of blockchain projects represents genuine innovation in the capital markets and crowdfunding space. ICM indeed has tremendous potential to become the next DeFi or AI niche for the blockchain world. However, it must overcome several hiccups before promising to deliver long-term value and erase any doubts of it being just a speculative bubble.

1. Extreme Volatility

Most, if not all, tokens in the ICM space are ideated, developed and funded within minutes, without any solid tokenomics, technical or fundamental backing, or even a future roadmap. These tokens climb the price board purely on sentiment and speculation. When the momentum drops and the enthusiasm dies, these tokens suffer a sharp price drop. In fact, it is common for the price of ICM tokens to fluctuate around 30-50% in a day.

A classic case in point is $NOODLE, which lost more than 50% of its value within hours of its launch, without any sign of recovery even after a month of trade.

2. No Built-In Protection

Unlike traditional capital markets, ICM does not yet enjoy any built-in protections. Anyone can launch a token on the Believe.app without any verification of authenticity or accountability. There is no regulatory framework that protects investors from fraudulent tokens or projects, potential scams or token mismanagement. Hence, at the moment, ICM proves to be a risky proposition for investors who prefer having the safety net of a sound regulatory structure.

3. High Scope For Speculation

Since several of the ICM projects and tokens are developed without any constructive roadmap or future outlook, the tokens are subject to high speculation and sentiment-based investing. What’s more, several of these tokens enjoy traction and investor attention only in the first 2-3 days after the token launch, post which, there is another new token on the block to speculate with and gain from.

As many as 80% of the tokens lose their value within weeks of their launch. Only a few tokens continue to stay relevant and in demand. In such cases, small-time investors can burn their fingers at the hands of large whale investors who can drive the prices up, only to book profits and send the token plummeting down the price charts in a few days.

This kind of speculative trading can malign the very essence of crowdfunding for projects that have potential and promise, making the entire ICM market one of fear and speculative trading alone.

4. Imminent Regulatory Scrutiny

It is only a matter of time before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other global and national regulatory bodies governing cryptocurrencies and digital assets take a closer look at the ICM niche, attaching various regulatory compliances, scrutiny and mandates on platforms like Believe.app as well as individual developers using the platform.

Once the regulatory framework and mandates come into play, it is left to be seen if the ICM space still packs in the same promise and potential, or does it lose its fizz once compliances are set in place.

Top Internet Capital Market Projects and Tokens

Within its short stint, it has managed to deliver considerable value. Several projects have emerged from the Believe.app across various genres, including web-3-powered shopping platforms, memecoins, gaming, and more.  Here is a deeper look into some of the standout projects that have emerged from Believe.app:

• $Launchcoin

Launchcoin is the native token of the Believe.app, the centrepiece of the ICM movement. Based on the Solana chain, Launchcoin powers the Believe.app, serving as the medium for payments for premium services on the Believe.app, as well as strong governance and voting rights for feature rollouts, fees and more. In fact, a portion of the launch and trade fees is directed towards the holders of the Launchcoin.

Launchcoin has been in the favour of whale investors, particularly one who purchased 9.37 million launchcoin tokens for $1.59 million, being instrumental in pushing the price of the token on an upward trajectory.

In the coming months, Launchcoin aims to go beyond being just a token launcher to becoming a Web3 incubator, supporting new projects and offering technical assistance.

• $GOONC

This memecoin from the ICM space is thriving on strong community engagement and social media trends. Built on the Solana network, $GOONC or gooncoin is positioned as a ticket to the GOONiverse, a place where memes and crypto swagger combine with a "gangsta dog" theme.

The token was launched by the user @basedalexandoor on X, based on the phenomenon of gooning, a focused and immersive state of consumption of digital content.

Within a month of its existence, GOONC has achieved a listing on various centralised and decentralised exchanges such as Meteora, BitMart and Raydium. GOONC also has a trading pair with USDT.

• $DUPE

DUPE is the latest and viral shopping destination on the internet, offering cheaper alternatives with Web3 token utilities. Launched on 29th April on the Solana blockchain, this smart platform is named after the word dupe, meaning a cheaper alternative of any product.

Leveraging AI tools, this fun and easy shopping platform compares prices of a particular product across various internet portals in mere seconds. All you have to do is upload the image of a product or describe the product, and let Dupe’s AI scans work its magic. Aside from discovering the best price for buyers, Dupe is also useful in bringing small brands and hidden gems to the fore.

Holders of the token $DUPE can use the token to make purchases, pay for premium features on the platform, earn rewards, and participate in platform governance.

Dupe has also been featured on the major television show The Today Show.

• $BUDDY

Alright Buddy, with the ticker symbol $BUDDY, is a project in the ICM space that aims to promote community engagement and support Web3 and Solana projects' growth through easy-to-use tools for referrals and marketing. This project helps users connect with friends, find new projects, earn rewards, and manage referrals and more.

BUDDY uses smart contracts, allowing developers to create decentralised apps (dApps) that utilise the BUDDY ecosystem. Despite its short-lived existence, this app has been a go-to for both new and experienced developers.

• $NOODLE

Noodle.gg is inspired by the popular computer game that involves a snake moving around the screen, eating small items to grow bigger. Alex Leiman, the founder of Noodle, has created a blockchain version of this game on the Believe.app called Noodle.gg, with an affiliated token $NOODLE.

Players can buy $NOODLE tokens to start the game, with the option of picking up more tokens in-game. As players kill one another and eat the remains, they acquire the loser’s tokens to grow bigger. Thus, the good old online snake game can now make users actual money. Several users have joined the Noodle.gg gaming space, with some players having made as high as $30,000, sticking through the game and usurping tokens of rival players.

Traditional Capital Markets Vs Internet Capital Markets

Capital markets are being reconfigured for the digital age like never before, with speed, freedom, flexibility, and accessibility being the focal drivers of the shift from traditional capital markets to the blockchain world.

An apt indicator of the growth of digital assets is the fact that 70,000 new tokens are created on the Solana chain every day, ranging from native crypto tokens to memecoins, AI tokens and more. On the other hand, US stock exchanges can list only 12,000 securities. As of 2024, BlackRock estimates that the digital asset space has reached 300 million users and a total market capitalisation of $3.5 trillion. This is indicative of the fact that more money is changing hands online rapidly, easily and efficiently in comparison to traditional markets.

This gradual shift from traditional markets to digital capital markets is due to several characteristics of modern markets, such as higher flow of capital in digital markets over traditional markets, monetisation of attention, instant settlements, real-world assets, decentralised functioning/finance and more.

There is no denying that the Internet Capital Market is indeed the cornerstone of novel capital funding. Despite its challenges and shortcomings, ICM offers a tremendous opportunity in empowering global retail investors with the freedom to invest across geographies, niches and projects at the click of a button. Innovators and ideators also leverage the plentiful benefits of democratisation of finance, paving the way for a new era in capital mobilisation.

What’s Next For Internet Capital Markets?

ICM will continue to remain a high-risk, high-reward blockchain niche that will attract high retail participation thanks to its strong connections with social media platforms like X. Its rapid ability to raise capital will continue to empower ideators and innovators with fast access to funds, giving credible projects the traction and longevity they deserve.

Retail investors will also be spoilt for choice with respect to investment opportunities, flexibility in changing investment strategies, liquidating investments and higher scope for speculative gains.

Having said that, it is only a matter of time before regulatory compliance and mandates creep into the ICM space. It is uncertain if ICM will continue to attract the same traction and retail investment once regulatory frameworks are set in place.

Further, as the market is plagued with speculative trading, it can get overwhelming for retail investors to find the right tokens for long-term value. Some thumb rules include choosing projects that have clear utility and even a future roadmap. If the projects boast of a strong team of individuals with a history of goodwill in the crypto space, it could be worth considering as a viable investment option. Any token burns/ reward mechanisms could add to the credibility of a project. As the ICM market matures, it will become increasingly evident which projects have long-term potential and which are just a short-term speculative asset.

All in all, understanding how the ICM space works and observing it with a keen eye over the coming months will be beneficial for crypto investors and traders to align their investment strategies and derive value.

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