Launching a token takes an afternoon. Verifying the team behind it does not, and buyers rarely have the time. Two launch platforms, Legion and Vibestarter, now show the founder’s Ethos score on the page where people decide whether to put money in, at a cost of $0 to vet a founder.

For anyone backing a raise, that means a first read on the team before committing. For the platforms, it means a way to surface real founders without vetting every team by hand.

The problem with vetting founders

Launch platforms want to highlight credible founders and filter out bad actors. Hand-vetting every team does not scale, and the people buying into a sale usually can’t do that work themselves.

Ethos turns founder reputation into a portable score, computed from reviews, ETH staked through vouches, and verification. Placed on a sale page, it gives reputable founders distribution, gives backers a quick signal, and follows the founder from one launch to the next.

Surface, weight, enforce

The case study describes three ways the score is put to work:

1. Surface: the founder’s Ethos score shows on the sale page, next to their links.
2. Weight: reputation feeds allocation and access, and Human Verified users earn more.
3. Enforce: on Vibestarter, escrow releases over time and backers can challenge.

Legion: 30+ sales and Kraken Launch

Legion, a merit-based launchpad, was covered here earlier when it first added Ethos scores. Since then it has run 30+ token sales and powers Kraken Launch.

On Legion, founder scores appear on sales pages and feed into the Legion score. Human Verified users get a badge and tiered access.

Vibestarter: escrow and a 72-hour challenge window

Vibestarter is a crowdfunding platform on Base. It adds a layer that goes beyond showing a score:

• The founder’s Ethos score appears on every raise page.
• Funds are held in escrow and released in monthly tranches.
• Backers get a 72-hour window to challenge each release.

The score helps backers decide before they commit. The escrow and challenge window give them a say after the money has moved.

How Ethos compares with other checks

The case study sets Ethos against two common ways of vetting a founder: checking their social links and team KYB.

• Cheap to check: social links, yes; team KYB, no; Ethos, free.
• Visible to buyers: social links, yes; team KYB, rarely; Ethos, yes.
• Sybil resistance: social links, low; team KYB, medium; Ethos, high.
• Shows track record: social links, no; team KYB, some; Ethos, yes.
• Portable across launches: social links, no; team KYB, no; Ethos, yes.

Portability is the point that sets the score apart. A founder’s history doesn’t reset when they start a new raise on a different platform.

How other platforms could use this

The case study lists three patterns any launch platform could follow:

• Buyer-facing diligence: show the founder’s reputation on the sale page so participants can read the team before they commit.
• Reputation-weighted allocation: give credible founders and backers better access.
• Tiered access: give Ethos members a base benefit and Human Verified users a premium tier.

The Ethos API is free and needs no key, so adding the score to a sale page doesn’t require changes to a platform’s existing stack.

This article is adapted from the Ethos case study.