Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

MegaETH, with its technological breakthrough in "real-time blockchain" and community-built ecological concept, has become a focal project in the crypto market.

While the Ethereum ecosystem is still struggling with performance bottlenecks, MegaETH is reshaping the imagination of the Layer 2 track with its technical declaration of "100,000 TPS + millisecond latency."

From the early seed round financing backed by Vitalik, to the lightning fundraising of the Echo community, and the NFT sales at the beginning of this year, every step of MegaETH has resonated with the market.

Now, this project backed by Vitalik Buterin is about to launch a public sale on the Sonar platform. Is this a rare entry opportunity for ordinary investors? Or is it the final leg of risk accumulation?

This article will dissect the financing context, valuation logic, core value, and potential risks.

MegaETH Financing Journey: From VC, Vitalik's Endorsement to Community Building

As an Ethereum L2 project committed to achieving "real-time blockchain," MegaETH's financing journey showcases an evolution from VC financing to community-driven sales.

In June 2024, MegaETH announced the completion of a $20 million seed round financing, led by Dragonfly, with participation from institutions such as Figment Capital, Robot Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, and angel investors including Vitalik Buterin, ConsenSys founder and CEO Joseph Lubin, EigenLayer founder and CEO Sreeram Kannan, ETHGlobal co-founder Kartik Talwar, Helius Labs co-founder and CEO Mert Mumtaz, Hasu, and Jordan Fish (also known as Cobie).

By December 2024, MegaETH raised $10 million in less than three minutes through Cobie's Echo platform, far exceeding the set target of $4.2 million. This round of financing attracted about 3,200 investors from 94 countries, with an average investment amount of $3,140 per investor.

At that time, MegaETH co-founder Shuyao Kong told The Block that the seed round and Echo round financing adopted a structure of equity plus token warrants, with both rounds valued at "nine digits," indicating an FDV of at least $100 million.

To the community's surprise, in February of this year, MegaETH launched "The Fluffle" series of NFTs for innovative financing, further expanding its community base. The series consists of 10,000 NFTs, all non-transferable SBTs (soulbound tokens), sold through a whitelist at a price of 1 ETH, with holders entitled to at least 5% of future token distribution rights, unlocking 50% on the day of TGE and the remaining gradually over six months.

This NFT issuance was divided into two phases, with the first phase (5,000 NFTs) being a retrospective phase aimed at individuals actively participating in the crypto industry (from supporting key protocols to guiding local communities), with a small portion allocated to influential early believers in the MegaETH community and various strategic partners, some of which were distributed as free mints. A week after the launch, MegaETH announced the completion of the first phase of NFT issuance.

According to MegaETH's previous plans, the second phase of NFT issuance will be discovered a few months after the first phase, aiming to provide similar participation opportunities for users who continue to drive impactful social and on-chain interactions for MegaETH. The difference in this round is that quotas will be allocated to MegaETH's flagship accelerator program "Mega Mafia." Each team will receive a portion of the quota to distribute to their respective communities. A small portion of the quota in this round will be reserved for ordinary users through social media analysis.

According to the MegaETH website, the latest community sale is open to all users who have successfully completed identity verification on the Sonar platform and will use USDT on the Ethereum mainnet as the payment method, possibly adopting an English auction format with a fixed maximum price. Choosing a one-year lock-up period will enjoy a 10% discount on the final token price. All U.S. participants must lock up their tokens.

Valuation Logic: Historical Pricing, Market Expectations, and Core Value

The evolution of MegaETH's valuation is closely linked to its financing journey, market expectations, technological progress, distribution mechanisms, and ecosystem.

Historical Financing Valuation: Climbing from $100 Million to $540 Million

As mentioned earlier, MegaETH's FDV was in the nine-digit range during the $20 million seed round financing in June 2024 and the $10 million Echo round financing in December 2024.

In February of this year, during the first phase of NFT issuance, according to a screenshot released by OpenSea's Chief Marketing Officer Adam Hollander, MegaETH raised 4,964 ETH in the first phase of NFT issuance, valued at $13.29 million at that time.

Based on my calculations, this $13.29 million represents at least 2.5% of token distribution rights, which allows us to estimate that MegaETH's FDV was around $540 million based on the NFT fundraising situation.

Polymarket Market Prediction: 86% Probability of Hitting $2 Billion FDV

In the Polymarket prediction market regarding "MegaETH's FDV on the first day of launch," the probability of betting on an FDV greater than $2 billion reached 86%, with a 57% probability for an FDV greater than $4 billion, and a 21% probability for an FDV greater than $6 billion.

This means that if MegaETH's FDV reaches $2 billion, the returns for the first batch of NFT holders would be 3.7 times (in USD), while the profit potential for seed round and Echo round participants would be even more substantial.

Platform Effect Boost: The "Profit Effect" of Sonar's First Project

The Sonar platform (a platform under Echo founded by Cobie), where this community sale is taking place, comes with a traffic halo. Its first fundraising project, Plasma, performed impressively—peaking at 34 times the sale price ($0.05) four days after TGE, and currently maintaining a 9-fold increase. This platform effect further elevates market expectations for MegaETH's valuation.

Core Value: The Triple Moat of Technology, Mechanism, and Ecosystem

MegaETH's ability to continuously attract capital and community favor stems from its differentiated competitive advantages in technological innovation, distribution mechanisms, and ecosystem building.

In terms of technology, addressing the common issues of second-level delays and insufficient throughput in existing L2s, MegaETH significantly enhances Ethereum's scalability by optimizing the execution environment and node architecture while maintaining full compatibility with EVM, directly addressing the core needs of high-frequency trading, real-time chain games, and other Web 3 applications.

Regarding distribution mechanisms, MegaETH's approach largely adheres to community orientation, from seed round financing to the elite community-limited financing platform Echo, to NFT sales targeting individuals deeply involved in the crypto industry, and the upcoming ICO on the more equitable public token sale platform Sonar, avoiding the traditional financing monopolization of shares by institutions.

It is worth emphasizing that the "The Fluffle" series SBTs issued by MegaETH also eliminate tradable attributes, with token releases adopting a "TGE 50% + 6 months linear unlock" model. At the start of the unlock, the token rewards for holders are linked to the depth of network interaction, encouraging genuine user participation through a dynamic evolution mechanism.

In terms of ecosystem building, MegaETH is gradually unfolding through its accelerator program MegaMafia, flagship builder center MegaForge, and stablecoin MegaUSD. The testnet has attracted multiple application deployments, covering various fields such as DeFi, social, gaming, and AI, with selected applications including DEX GTE, stablecoin engine CAP, real-time perpetual contract platform Valhalla, and trend trading platform NOISE.

Risk Warning

Despite its prominent highlights, MegaETH still faces multiple challenges. In horizontal comparison, the current valuations of mainstream Layer 2s have set a reference benchmark for the market, with Arbitrum's FDV at $3.2 billion, OP's FDV at $2 billion, Starknet's FDV at $1.2 billion, and Zksync's FDV at $800 million. Against this backdrop, whether MegaETH can break through the $2 billion FDV remains uncertain.

As an early project, MegaETH also faces risks related to technological implementation and overall market volatility. Investors need to maintain rational judgment and make cautious decisions based on specific pricing, FDV, and token economic models after the detailed sales terms are announced. DYOR.

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