All terms
Selling a token before it trades publicly, and a very common vehicle for theft.
A presale collects money for a token that does not exist yet or is not yet tradeable, at a price below the intended launch price. Legitimate versions exist with escrow, vesting and disclosure. The far more common version is somebody collecting funds to an address and never launching anything.
The structural problem is that you are sending irreversible money to a stranger in exchange for a promise, with no enforcement. Even where the token does launch, presale buyers who got in cheapest are the natural first sellers.
Treat any unsolicited presale invitation as theft in progress. Orca Crypto has never run one and never will.
A group chat offering an allocation if you send SOL to an address before the launch, with a countdown timer attached.
That a presale price is a discount. It is a price you cannot exit at, set by the people selling, for a token with no market yet. Most presales are the whole business model rather than a stage of one.
Common questions
Are presales ever legitimate?
What should I check before joining one?
Where this comes up on the site
The guides that actually use this word, rather than a list of everything we have written.
Where to go next
More trading terms
Want this explained out loud?
Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.