How Cambo works
Everything the protocol does, in plain terms — what happens to your money at each step, what the contracts can and cannot do, and where to verify it yourself.
What Cambo is
Cambo is a launchpad for EVM chains. Anyone can create a token in one transaction. It starts trading immediately on a bonding curve, and once enough has been raised it graduates: the liquidity moves to a decentralised exchange and gets locked there permanently.
The same flow works on every supported chain. Adding a new network is a configuration entry plus a contract deployment — nothing about a launch changes.
How a launch works
- Create. Name, ticker, image and links. Optionally you buy the first tokens in the same transaction — which makes it impossible for a bot to buy before you.
- Trade on the curve. The price rises as people buy and falls as they sell, following a fixed formula. No order book, no liquidity providers.
- Graduate. When the raise target is hit, the same transaction creates a pool on the DEX, deposits every unit of the raise into it, and locks it forever.
- Trade on the DEX. The token is now a standard ERC-20 that trades anywhere. Nothing else is required from anyone.
The bonding curve
Every token has a fixed supply of 1,000,000,000: 800 million are sold on the curve and 200 million are held back for the DEX pool. Whatever is left over at graduation gets burned, so the real circulating supply ends up lower.
The curve uses a constant-product formula with a virtual reserve: an amount the maths treats as already being in the pool, but which nobody ever put in and nobody can take out. This gives the token a starting price and, more importantly, a floor. If every single holder sold, the price would return exactly to where it started and stop there. It cannot go below its launch price.
Before graduation the token can only move against the curve — it is not transferable between wallets. That prevents fake markets and side deals while the curve is the only venue.
Graduation
Graduation is triggered by the buy that crosses the target, and it happens inside that same transaction. There is no pause, no window, no manual step. In one block: the curve closes, the pool is created, the liquidity is deposited and trading continues on the DEX.
The pool opens at exactly the price the curve closed at. The contract calculates how many tokens to pair with the raise so there is no gap — no instant dump for arbitrage bots to collect at the expense of holders.
Then the liquidity is locked, in whichever way the DEX version allows:
- Uniswap V4 — the position belongs to the factory contract, which has no function capable of withdrawing it. A locked box with no door, and the blueprints are public.
- Uniswap V2 — the LP token is sent to the burn address, so the claim ticket on that liquidity no longer exists.
The only exception is a token explicitly created in migration mode, which buyers can see labelled before they buy.
Fees
Protocol fee — 0.5% per trade
Cambo charges 0.5% on every buy and every sell, taken from the native side (ETH, USDT0, whatever the chain uses). It applies on the curve and, on chains with Uniswap V4, it keeps applying after graduation through our pool hook.
Creator taxes — optional, up to 5%
A creator can add their own fee on top, or not add any. If they set it to zero, nobody but the protocol charges anything and traders pay 0.5% flat. Three kinds exist and they can be combined freely, as long as they add up to 5% or less:
- In native currency — paid to the creator's wallet in ETH
- In tokens — paid to the creator's wallet in their own token
- Burned — removed from supply on every trade
All of it is paid out in the same transaction as the trade. There is nothing to claim and nothing accumulating in a contract.
Creator options
Initial buy
You can buy in the transaction that creates the token. Since the token does not exist until that transaction runs, it is physically impossible for a sniper to get in first.
Max transaction and max wallet
Anti-whale limits, expressed as a percentage of supply. They start applying once the token trades on the DEX — during the bonding curve the curve itself is the limiter, since every successive buy costs more. They come with guardrails so they cannot be turned into a trap:
- Minimum floors — max transaction at least 0.1%, max wallet at least 0.5%
- They can only ever be removed, never tightened
- They apply on the DEX, not on the curve — a 2% cap on the curve would leave the first buyer barely 0 of room
- The pool and the router are exempt, so trading never breaks
What a creator can never do
- Touch the liquidity of a normal token
- Freeze transfers or block a specific wallet
- Mint more supply
- Raise their tax after launch, or set one above 5%
Migration mode
An optional mode for launching a token on one chain with the intent of moving it to another later — for example, getting exposure to a chain before it opens.
It is chosen when the token is created and can never be changed, and every buyer sees a MIGRATES → badge on the token before buying. When the creator triggers the move:
- The liquidity leaves — from the curve if it has not graduated, from the DEX pool if it has. Both cases work.
- Trading closes on the original chain and any remaining tokens are burned.
- A snapshot of every holder is taken, rebuilt from public blockchain events so anyone can recompute it.
- Holders claim the same balance on the destination chain from the claim page.
Where the money can go
The liquidity lands in a single-purpose vault. That vault can only push funds to a route registered for that destination — registered once, then frozen forever, so nobody can redirect funds after people have bought. Each token page shows its route openly:
- Bridge contract — funds move contract to contract and never pass through anyone's wallet.
- Assisted — that chain has no programmable bridge, so Cambo performs the hop. During it, the funds are in Cambo's hands. We say so plainly rather than hiding it.
- Not registered — nothing can leave the vault, and migration cannot even be triggered.
If the bridge fails
Bridges break, and a destination chain might not ship what it promised. If the automated transfer cannot be completed, Cambo can rescue the funds and finish the migration by hand — deploying the pool and the claim on the destination chain manually — so the token still ends up where buyers were told it would.
The rescue is immediate by design. The entire point of migration mode is being on the new chain the moment it opens — that is what people bought. A forced waiting period would defeat it. Every rescue is recorded on-chain with a stated reason, so its use is public and auditable.
Be clear about what this means: for a token in migration mode, and only once its migration has been triggered, Cambo can take custody of that liquidity in order to finish the move. That is a real trust assumption and we would rather you read it here than discover it later. Normal tokens are untouched by any of this — their liquidity has no exit at all, for anyone.
Security
What the contracts cannot do
There is no admin key that can take the liquidity of a normal token, pause trading, freeze a wallet or mint supply. Those functions do not exist in the code — this is not a promise, it is something you can check by reading the verified source of every contract.
The single exception, stated plainly: liquidity of a token launched in migration mode, once its migration has been triggered, can be rescued by Cambo in order to complete the move by hand if the bridge fails. Nothing else, ever — and that mode is labelled on the token before anyone buys.
Audit
The contracts were analysed with Slither and hardened accordingly. The real issue it surfaced — a reentrancy path opened by paying a creator's tax to an address they control — was fixed with a reentrancy guard and is covered by a test that runs the actual attack and proves it fails.
Being straight with you: that is static analysis plus our own tests, not a paid third-party audit. It is a strong net, but the code was reviewed by the people who wrote it. Size your risk accordingly.
Testing
- 23 unit tests covering the curve, fees, taxes, limits, migration and claims
- Tests against a fork of the live chain using the real Uniswap V4 contracts — graduation, perpetual fees and liquidity withdrawal on migration
- A complete cross-chain migration executed with real funds between two live chains
The site itself
Connecting a wallet only shares your public address. Every transaction is signed by you, in your wallet, showing you what you are approving. The site blocks external scripts entirely, which is the usual route for the attacks that swap a transaction underneath you. Token links and images supplied by creators are sanitised before rendering.
Chains & contracts
Every address below is verified on its block explorer — click through and read the source.