Original title: "megaETH Retro ICO Causes Controversy, Benefiting the Community or Reaping Early?"

Original author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

MegaETH, a real-time blockchain focusing on improving Ethereum performance, announced today the upcoming launch of a new NFT series: The Fluffle. The total supply of this NFT series is 10000, with a whitelist price of 1 ETH. The NFTs are non-tradable and non-transferable SBT (Soul-Bound Tokens). NFT holders will enjoy the rights to 5% token distribution in the future, with 50% unlockable on TGE day and the remaining linearly unlocked within 6 months. The details of the whitelist have not been announced yet, but users can currently check their whitelist eligibility on the official website.

megaETH is one of the popular Ethereum scaling solutions in this round. On June 27, 2024, it completed a $20 million seed round financing and received funding support from institutions and celebrities such as Dragonfly, Robot Ventures, Folius Ventures, and Vitalik Buterin. In December 2024, it conducted a community round financing on the Echo platform and achieved its financing goal of $10 million within 3 minutes. Its valuation has exceeded $200 million.

But the NFT sale launched by megaETH this time has sparked intense controversy in the community. On the one hand, some players believe that the fundraising odds are extremely high this time and actively accept the whitelist off the court. On the other hand, some players also question whether megaETH's move is a disguised ICO and taking advantage of the bull market to harvest the community before it ends. So who is more reasonable? Odaily Star Daily will sort out the two perspectives in this article for readers' reference, not as any investment advice.

Zhengfang: The valuation is reasonable and worth participating

Undoubtedly, the highlight of megaETH's The Fluffle series NFT this time lies in the future distribution of 5% of tokens through airdrops, so the community generally sees it as a 'token selling' activity. The successful project receives 10,000 ETH, currently equivalent to about 27 million USD (if ETH doesn't fall), and the FDV of tokens calculated based on the 5% airdrop ratio is 540 million USD.

And with the previous $30 million in financing, megaETH's total financing amount reaches $57 million, calculated at 20 times the general token valuation, megaETH's FDV is only $1.14 billion.

But whether it's a $540 million FDV calculated based on NFT pricing or an $1.14 billion FDV estimated based on financing, the community players supporting megaETH believe that the valuation is still within a reasonable range and has potential returns of at least 10 times. After all, compared to the previous hot Ethereum scaling solutions like TEG, with FDVs such as ZKsync ($4.2 billion), Starknet ($19.5 billion), and Blast ($2.7 billion), megaETH's current FDV is indeed not high and even lower than Starknet's current circulating market value of $660 million.

ABCDE Venture founder BMAN voiced support for megaETH: "They could have raised more funds but turned down a $1 billion offer from VC and chose the retro ICO approach to distribute tokens to a larger community. I believe this is an attractive opportunity for liquidity and also one of the most asymmetric recently. As an investor, I am happy to see Ethereum return to a simple, retro ICO era."

Team member enzoblue of the NFT project CyberKongz has even made a bold statement, saying that if anyone does not want to be on the whitelist, feel free to DM.

Some community players have also seen through the reason behind megaETH's 'shell borrowing and selling coins'. On the one hand, by using SBT, it can avoid speculation of NFT in the secondary market; on the other hand, it clearly defines NFT as 'collectibles', which reasonably avoids legal risks and allows the community to obtain private placement prices that are almost the same as VCs in the form of NFTs. When facing community doubts, the co-founder of megaETH, Cake Brother, also frankly stated, 'We cannot directly ICO tokens to the community, we can only lower the valuation in this way and give it to the community in the form of NFTs, and whether everyone buys it or not depends on their own valuation of the project.'

The opposition: the mainnet has not moved, harvesting in advance

Of course, in this world of truth and falsehood, where everything is based on eloquence, it is often necessary to understand the true thoughts of the project party, not just what they say. Therefore, some community players have questioned megaETH, believing that the valuation of 540 million US dollars is still too high in the current market environment, and that the project party intends to harvest in advance by selling coins before the mainnet goes live, taking advantage of the abundant liquidity in the bull market.

During this cycle, there is a phenomenon prevalent in the market where projects tend to view token issuance/listing as the ultimate goal. Many projects, after profiting from token issuance, even quietly cease operations, only hoping for the tokens to unlock quickly each day. With lessons learned from past experiences, the disguised ICO of megaETH occurred before the mainnet launch, with the actual product yet to be implemented. After receiving the funds, will there still be the drive to continue with further development? Does the product justify its current valuation? These questions inevitably raise concerns. Ultimately, in the current imperfect regulatory environment, the highest constraint for Web3 project teams is their own moral standards. Is the priority to build first or to prioritize money?

Chinese KOL in the Chinese-speaking community has recently released a long article questioning the NFT release activity of megaETH, expressing the view that MegaETH does not genuinely care about the community experience. If they truly cared, they should distribute tokens through a fair mechanism (such as game contributions, activity rewards, or even NFT staking). The project team seems to oppose the 'meaningless airdrop point system,' but in reality, they are just finding an excuse to justify directly selling tokens themselves.

KOL Fengwuxiang is also worried about the subsequent airdrop ratio of MegaETH, after all, Liver Emperor has never been able to beat the big spenders. At the same time, it is indicated that compared to Monad, MegaETH is still working on ecological construction and attaches importance to ecological activities. MegaETH has obtained funds through ICO and no longer needs CEX to provide liquidity for withdrawal, which may not be a good thing for the industry in this new paradigm.

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