How to Choose the Right Chain
Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Robinhood Chain, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Blast, Linea, Unichain, Mantle, Eclipse, Berachain, Sonic, Sei, Injective, Cronos and Gnosis are live today, and the rest of the directory is on the way. Here's a practical way to think about where a token belongs, so you're ready as each network comes online.
Start with where your audience already is
A token needs buyers before it needs anything else. If your community already holds a Solana wallet, launching on Ethereum first adds friction for no benefit. Check where your existing audience (a Discord, a Twitter following, an existing product's users) already transacts, and default to that chain unless you have a specific reason not to.
Fees you'll actually pay
Network fees for deploying a standard token range from a fraction of a cent (Solana, Arbitrum, Base, Blast) to a few dollars (Ethereum mainnet, Polygon under congestion). If your launch budget is tight, an L2 or an app-chain with low, stable fees (Base, Arbitrum, Berachain, Sonic, Sei) removes one variable. If deep, established liquidity matters more than fees, Ethereum still has the most of it.
Speed and finality
Solana, Sei, Sonic and similar high-throughput chains confirm in well under a second. Ethereum mainnet can take 12+ seconds per block and longer for full finality. This mostly matters for how a launch feels, since fast confirmation makes a live mint or trading event feel more responsive, rather than for the deployment itself.
Ecosystem fit
- Memecoins and community tokens: Solana's the default for a reason: Pump.fun, Raydium and a large, fast-moving retail audience.
- DeFi and governance tokens: Ethereum, Arbitrum and Base have the deepest DeFi liquidity and the most composable tooling.
- Institutional or enterprise-adjacent: Gnosis leans toward that audience, through its multisig-heavy treasury tooling.
- On-chain finance and orderbook-style products: Injective is purpose-built for this.
Don't discount launching on more than one
A project can live on more than one chain eventually (a Solana version for speed, an EVM version for a different audience), as long as you're upfront with holders about which is canonical and why. Every chain you can deploy to here uses the same console, but each deploy is a separate token on its own chain, with no bridge between them. A second chain is a second token, with its own supply and its own pool.
The honest answer
If you're unsure, Solana is the safest default right now: the fastest, cheapest path to a large retail audience. What you can deploy to here today is 20 chains (Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Robinhood Chain, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Blast, Linea, Unichain, Mantle, Eclipse, Berachain, Sonic, Sei, Injective, Cronos and Gnosis). If you want Ethereum's liquidity and tooling without Ethereum's gas, Base and Arbitrum are the cheapest ways in. Everything else on the list is a better fit for a specific use case than a default.
Sources
Ready to pick one?
20 chains live today. Compare the whole directory, or jump straight into Deploy.
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