Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

Just a few days into 2026, the most dismal public fundraising event for a well-known project in the crypto industry in recent years may have already occurred: After nearly 30 hours since the launch of the Infinex token public offering, the subscription amount was only $460,000, less than 10% of the expected amount.

It is worth noting that the Infinex project team had already made significant concessions in valuation, fundraising goals, and terms design, considering the bleak market conditions. The valuation for this public offering was drastically reduced from $300 million announced last November to $100 million, and the planned fundraising amount was cut from $15 million to $5 million.

Even with such drastic adjustments, Infinex's public offering still received a tepid response from the market, which surprised many market observers. After all, Infinex, as a star project, had previously secured over $60 million in funding, and the founding team and investors have impressive backgrounds. Infinex's experience is a true reflection of the current downturn in the crypto market.

What is Infinex?

Founded by Kain Warwick, the DeFi OG and founder of Synthetix, Infinex became independent from Synthetix in 2023. Initially positioned as a decentralized perpetual contract protocol, it has gradually evolved into a comprehensive crypto application that allows users to seamlessly switch between different DeFi protocols and chains on a unified interface. The current focus is on perpetual contracts based on Hyperliquid, cross-chain bridging and trading, multi-chain asset management, and yield earning functionalities.

Another key feature is the use of a new security architecture centered around on-chain smart accounts and keys, replacing traditional mnemonic phrases and email models, making login more convenient and quick. It also supports the use of biometric technology (touch or face ID) for on-chain transaction signing.

Overall, Infinex aims to enhance user experience, emphasize lowering user thresholds, integrate multi-chain liquidity, and attempt to address the long-standing issues of complexity and asset fragmentation in DeFi at the product level.

In October 2024, Infinex recently raised $65.3 million in sponsorship revenue by selling "Patron NFTs," selling 41,252 NFTs in four rounds to retail traders, venture capital firms like Solana Ventures and Breyer Capital, as well as notable individuals such as Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Aave founder Stani Kulechov.

Infinex recently revealed in an article that the implied valuation for this round of NFT financing is $400 million, and participants have priority allocation rights for the latest public offering round.

Infinex's investor lineup Source: RootData

Why is the public offering cold?

From $65.3 million to $460,000, Infinex's public offering has experienced a stark contrast in treatment. While the dismal market conditions are certainly a factor, the more significant issue lies in the project team's strategic miscalculations.

According to the public offering rules, Infinex officials limited each address to a maximum investment of $2,500, aiming to attract more participants and reduce the impact of whale addresses on token concentration. Although the intention was positive, market feedback indicated that the team did not consider that the number of active on-chain users was far below expectations in the recent weak market conditions. Only 285 addresses participated in the public offering after its launch, with only 134 addresses reaching the $2,500 cap.

Infinex's latest tweet also expressed similar sentiments, stating, "We tried to balance existing NFT sponsors, new participants, and fair distribution, but the result was that almost no one was willing to participate in this sale."

All INX tokens purchased in this public offering will be locked for one year, which seems excessively long compared to other public offerings. Although buyers can choose to redeem their tokens early, the valuation of the purchase must be raised to $300 million accordingly.

Additionally, the significant reduction in valuation may have had a negative effect. Although Infinex's intention in lowering the valuation was to appease the market, such a drastic adjustment has objectively intensified some investors' wait-and-see sentiment. For some participants, the "plummeting correction" of the valuation reinforced their judgment of an overall downward expectation for the industry rather than providing a reason to enter.

In response to the poor public offering situation, Infinex announced on January 5 that it would cancel the maximum limit for individual addresses and change from random allocation to "maximum-minimum fair allocation," also known as "watered allocation." Each person's allocation will increase equally until it reaches the cap or is sold out. Infinex founder Kain Warwick also tweeted that he would personally fund the project’s operations if necessary.

However, even after the rule adjustments, the market still did not provide positive feedback. As of noon on January 6, on-chain data showed that the total investment amount for this public offering was $1.34 million from 508 transactions, still falling short of the $5 million target by $3.66 million. This suggests that the issue may not just be "unfriendly rule design," but rather that investors' interest in participating in such public offerings is systematically declining.

The deep structural contradictions of the public offering model

To some extent, Infinex's public offering failure is particularly striking because it occurred at a time when it seemed that "ICOs were warming up."

Since the second half of 2025, as Bitcoin prices stabilized and some sectors experienced a temporary rebound, discussions about the "recovery of the primary market" in the crypto market have gradually increased. Several projects, including Monad, Pump.Fun, Plasma, and Falcon Finance, have chosen to conduct token public offerings for financing, and the ICO public offering model, which had been significantly marginalized over the past two years, has begun to reappear in the industry’s view, along with the rapid rise of fundraising platforms like Buidlpad and echo.

However, rather than a resurgence of an ICO boom, it seems more like a passive choice.

In the current environment, traditional venture capital has noticeably reduced its frequency of investments, the valuation system has become more conservative, and the financing cycle has been significantly extended. For many projects that have not yet established stable revenue but require continuous development investment, token public offerings have become one of the few remaining "viable" financing paths. It does not rely entirely on institutional endorsements and does not need to accept extremely compressed private placement terms, theoretically allowing direct access to market liquidity.

It is against this backdrop that more and more projects are returning to public offerings. However, Infinex's experience clearly illustrates that the financing motives of project parties do not equate to the willingness of the market to invest.

More critically, the current round of "ICO resurgence" is exposing the deep structural contradictions of the token public offering model.

On one hand, project parties attempt to demonstrate their restraint and rationality to the market by lowering valuations, extending lock-up periods, and emphasizing long-termism; on the other hand, investors are expressing their indifference to this narrative through their actions. In a context of insufficient liquidity and limited secondary market absorption capacity, long-term lock-ups are not seen as a consensus on value but rather as a one-sided transfer of risk.

In past cycles, the core attraction of public offerings stemmed from two premises: expectations of rapid circulation and market sentiment premiums. However, these two premises have clearly weakened in the current environment. Token issuance increasingly resembles a transaction of "pre-cashing future," but the market is not in a hurry to price these futures.

The results of Infinex's public offering precisely reveal this misalignment. As more projects choose to raise funds through public offerings, the market has not correspondingly expanded its risk-bearing capacity for public offering assets but has instead become more selective. The result is that even with a solid project background and a significantly reduced valuation, public offerings may still face collective hesitation.

In the coming period, well-known projects like Zama (January 12) and MegaETH will also launch public offerings. Infinex's negative case will serve as an excellent test of market confidence and the effectiveness of the public offering mechanism.

In a cycle of liquidity contraction, declining risk appetite, and increasingly rational investors, any form of token issuance will need to face more stringent scrutiny. For the entire industry, this is both a pressure and an unavoidable reality check.

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