Ink Foundation, market maker GSR and a group of law and audit firms have launched Charter Foundation, a shared legal framework they say cuts upfront token launch costs by more than half.
The framework, announced on September 9, replaces work crypto founders currently repeat for every launch. Under the traditional setup, a project sets up three entities: a labs company, a Cayman Islands foundation and a British Virgin Islands issuance subsidiary. Charter Foundation said every project has to rebuild that structure from scratch, so it standardizes it instead.
For each project, Charter forms a dedicated Cayman Islands exempted company as the launch structure. While the project is under Charter, that entity is governed by Charter Foundation, whose board includes Glenn Kennedy and Petri Basson. After a successful launch, the company converts into an independent foundation and separates from Charter, so the project is not tied to it long term.
Charter itself claims the framework cuts upfront launch costs by more than half. Estimates of the traditional setup differ, from roughly $70,500 when counting only base setup to more than $100,000 once independent director fees are included. Charter has not published its own fee. On the partner list are law firms Carey Olsen, Renno & Co, Cooley and Fenwick, and security auditors ChainSecurity and Zellic.
The team behind Charter comes from Ink Foundation, which develops the Ink Ethereum Layer 2. Ink was released by Kraken, but an Ink Foundation spokesperson said Charter Foundation is not connected to Kraken.
Toufic Adlouni, co-founder of Renno & Co and a founding partner of Charter, said founders lose time and money assembling offshore structures instead of building product.
The timing is a bet on a quieter market turning. Charter’s documentation has been public since August 21, and no token has launched through the framework yet, so the promised savings remain projections. John Wu, counsel at Ink Foundation and Charter’s principal architect, said the point of building now is to be ready for the next wave of demand.
