If you choose to engage a retainer and working capital market maker pre-TGE, the most important priority is incentive alignment. The working capital provided should be skewed heavily toward stablecoins to ensure robust bid-side liquidity at launch, which helps absorb sell pressure and reduce early volatility. In aggregate, token inventory extended to market makers should not exceed 10% of initial circulating supply. Stablecoin depth protects the downside; excessive token inventory can amplify it.

When negotiating economics, you can often push harder on monthly retainers and setup fees, as these are rarely the primary driver of profit for sophisticated firms. The real focus should be on implementing a meaningful profit share — ideally 10% to 20% — structured on a net asset value (NAV) basis. This positions the market maker to operate like an asset manager, incentivized to intelligently grow total working capital rather than simply deploy passive liquidity. Without performance-based upside, monthly fees alone often result in minimal effort beyond automated quoting.

Finally, when structuring a NAV-based profit share, carefully define the initial mark-to-market valuation of token inventory. Using a premium to the intended opening FDV — for example, marking tokens at a $100M FDV when launching at $50M — forces the market maker to drive price appreciation beyond the open before earning performance upside. This prevents complacency, discourages careless bid defense that depletes stablecoins, and aligns the market maker with sustained post-launch growth rather than short-term stabilization alone.