Was there a premine or insider advantage when Kaspa launched?

No — when Kaspa's mainnet launched, there was no premine and no hardware advantage held by developers or any insider group. The external group that was developing specialized optical hardware for oPoW eventually dissolved, and DAGlabs (the for-profit entity behind early Kaspa development) also dissolved. As a result, anyone could mine on equal footing from day one. For a beginner, this matters because a premine or insider hardware edge is a common red flag in crypto projects — Kaspa's history shows neither applied here.