Whitepaper

Last updated October 21, 2026

A launchpad is a form that produces a transaction. The only question that matters is whether you can trust the transaction. WICK is built so that you do not have to: it shows you the simulation first, lets only you sign, and leaves a creator-signed receipt that anyone can check.

• 1. The problem
• 2. Principles
• 3. Architecture
• 4. Preflight
• 5. Receipts
• 6. Storage
• 7. Candles
• 8. Economics
• 9. The $WICK token
• 10. Limits
• 11. Roadmap

1. The problem

Launching on pump.fun is one transaction. The hard part is everything around it: a site that holds your mint key "for convenience", a fee hidden in slippage, a success screen that does not match what left your wallet, and a coin page that later shows art someone swapped out. Launchers sign blind, and buyers have nothing to check except a chart.

The industry answer has been to add trust: a brand, a Discord, a promise. WICK's answer is to remove the need for it.

2. Principles

1. Show the work. Any number WICK puts on screen must come from a simulation, a node, or a stored record you can open yourself.
2. Hold nothing. No keys, no funds, no mint authority, no metadata on WICK's servers. There are no WICK servers.
3. One signer. The creator signs the create transaction. The mint keypair is generated in the browser and signs only that one transaction, then is discarded.
4. Leave a record. A launch produces a receipt the creator signs and anyone can verify, forever.
5. Be boring about money. Zero platform fee, every third-party fee named with its recipient, and a dated fees page.

3. Architecture

WICK is three static files and a docs folder, served from GitHub Pages. In the browser they talk to four public services:

Your wallet is the only party that ever holds a secret. WICK's code is public and the page can be read in full in your browser's developer tools; it is the same code that runs.

4. Preflight

Preflight is the feature WICK is named for. Before anything is signed, WICK builds the exact create transaction (with a placeholder metadata address and a throwaway mint key) and submits it to a Solana node's simulateTransaction with signature verification off and the blockhash replaced. The node executes the transaction against current state and returns what would have happened.

WICK asks the node to return the post-state of two accounts: your wallet and the token account that would hold your first buy. From those it shows:

• exactly how many lamports leave your wallet (rent for the new accounts, network fee, priority fee, and the first buy with its fees), as one number and as a breakdown;
• exactly how many tokens you would receive, read from the simulated token account, not estimated from a curve formula;
• compute units consumed and the number of instructions;
• the program logs, so an error is shown as the program said it, not paraphrased.

When you light the wick, the real transaction (with the stored metadata address and the real mint) is simulated a second time. If that simulation fails, the wallet never opens.

5. Receipts

A receipt is a JSON document uploaded to Arweave through Irys after the create transaction confirms. Irys data items are signed by the uploader's key, so a receipt carries the creator's own signature as a property of the storage layer, not as a field WICK fills in. The receipts page gives the schema and the verification procedure; in short, the receipt page re-derives every claim from the chain and from Arweave in the reader's browser.

6. Storage

Art and metadata go to Arweave through Irys, under the free tier for files under 100 KiB (stills are shrunk to fit; GIFs above the limit are paid for from your wallet at Irys's posted price). Arweave storage is paid once and permanent, which is what a coin's identity should be. A Pinata key can be used instead for IPFS pinning; receipts need the Arweave route because they are signed by the same wallet session.

7. Candles

The board subscribes to PumpPortal's public stream of new pump.fun coins and, for each visible coin, to its trade stream. Every trade updates a small market-cap line drawn in the row. Art is resolved from each coin's own metadata through two CORS-friendly IPFS gateways, with DexScreener as a fallback once it indexes the mint. WICK ranks nothing and promotes nothing; the order is arrival order.

8. Economics

WICK charges no fee of any kind. The costs of a launch are pump.fun's (creation is free; 1.25% on trades, of which 0.30% goes to the creator), PumpPortal's (0.5% on a first buy built through its API), Solana's (rent and fees) and Irys's (free under the limit). All are listed with recipients on the fees page. If WICK ever introduces a fee it will be flat, shown on the form before you sign, and dated on that page first.

9. The $WICK token

A $WICK token is planned. Its contract address will be published on the WICK site first, in the $WICK section of the landing page, and nowhere earlier. Holding it will never be required to launch, and WICK's fee will not depend on it. Until the address appears on the site, every "$WICK" is an impostor.

10. Limits

• A simulation is a prediction for the current state; between preflight and signing, state can change. That is why the final transaction is simulated again immediately before your wallet opens.
• A receipt proves what the creator's browser observed and signed. It does not prove the coin is good, that the creator is honest, or that the art is original.
• WICK depends on public services it does not run. If PumpPortal, Irys or the RPCs are down, launches wait. WICK keeps no queue.
• One launch, one wallet, one signature. WICK will not add multi-wallet launches, bundled buys, or automatic selling.

11. Roadmap

• Receipt badges: a small embeddable "receipted on WICK" link for coin pages and posts, pointing at the verifier.
• Creator vault claims from the WICK page, once pump.fun's claim instruction is stable enough to build locally without a third-party builder.
• Translations of the docs layer.