MegaETH's $999M FDV Caps Record Sale, Triggers Refunds and Fairness Concerns

MegaETH has finalized its refund process for participants in its public token sale who submitted bids below the final fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $9.99 billion. The Ethereum Layer-2 project's token offering, which opened on October 27, drew unprecedented demand, with total commitments exceeding $1.18 billion in just hours, according to a BeinCrypto report. However, the sale's massive oversubscription—8.9 times the $49.95 million raise cap—raised concerns over fairness and manipulation, particularly as blockchain analytics firms flagged potential Sybil attacks, Cointelegraph reported.

The MEGA token auction, selling 5% of the total 10 billion token supply, saw 46,000 participants, with 70.6% bidding under $10,000, per BeinCrypto. The project's English auction format allowed bids ranging from $2,650 to $186,282, with 819 wallets committing the maximum amount within the first two hours, according to BeinCrypto. By the time the sale closed on October 30, commitments had surged to $360.8 million at the ceiling price of $0.0999 per token, implying a hypothetical FDV of $7.2 billion before adjustments, according to Yahoo Finance. The final FDV, however, was capped at $999 million, necessitating a refund for users whose bids fell below this threshold.

MegaETH's allocation mechanism prioritized long-term holders, offering a 10% discount for one-year token lockups. While 5.8% of bidders (2,686 users) opted for the lockup, U.S. participants were required to commit to the one-year term, per BeinCrypto. The project's whitepaper outlined a "special allocation mechanism" to distribute tokens based on community engagement and lockup choices, a process that concluded in early November, according to Cointelegraph.

The sale's meteoric success coincided with heightened scrutiny over Sybil tactics, where malicious actors created multiple wallets to distort demand, as reported by BeinCrypto. Bubblemaps and Arkham Intelligence reported anomalies, including 819 addresses committing the maximum bid in the first two hours. Despite these concerns, MegaETH emphasized its efforts to ensure equitable distribution, including restricting participation to verified accredited investors and enforcing single-wallet rules.

Santiment analyst Brian Q highlighted MegaETH's appeal, attributing the frenzy to its promise of sub-millisecond latency and 100,000+ transactions per second—a stark contrast to Ethereum's current performance, as noted by Cointelegraph. The project, backed by Vitalik Buterin and Joe Lubin, has positioned itself as a real-time blockchain solution, with a seed funding round led by Dragonfly in June 2024, Blockworks reported.

As the token generation event is slated for January 2026, MegaETH faces competition from other DeFi projects, including Andre Cronje's recent $200 million round. The market, however, remains under pressure from upcoming token unlocks totaling over $650 million, according to Yahoo Finance.