Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Golem (@web3_golem)

Focusing on enhancing Ethereum's performance, the real-time blockchain megaETH today announced the upcoming launch of a new NFT series: The Fluffle. This NFT series has a total supply of 10,000, with a whitelist price of 1 ETH, and is an untradeable and non-transferable SBT (Soulbound Token). NFT holders will enjoy rights including a future 5% token distribution, with 50% of TEG unlockable on the day of release, and the remaining amount will be unlocked linearly over six months. The whitelist details have not yet been announced, but users can currently check their whitelist eligibility on the official website.

megaETH is one of the popular Ethereum scaling solutions in this round, completing a $20 million seed round financing on June 27, 2024, supported by 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, achieving a $10 million financing goal in just three minutes, with a valuation exceeding $200 million.

However, the NFT sale event launched by megaETH has sparked intense controversy within the community. On one hand, some players believe that the fundraising odds are extremely high and are actively seeking whitelist spots off-market; on the other hand, some players question whether megaETH's actions are a disguised ICO, taking advantage of the ongoing bull market to harvest the community early. So who is more justified? Odaily Planet Daily will outline both viewpoints in this article for readers' reference, without providing any investment advice.

Pro: Reasonable Valuation, Worth Participating

There is no doubt that the highlight of megaETH's The Fluffle NFT series lies in the future 5% token airdrop distribution. Therefore, the community generally views it as a "shell sale" activity, where the successful sale allows the project party to obtain 10,000 ETH, currently approximately $27 million (assuming ETH does not drop). If calculated based on a 5% airdrop ratio, the token's FDV would be $540 million.

Adding the previously obtained $30 million in financing, megaETH's total financing amount reaches $57 million. Based on a typical token estimation of 20 times the financing amount, megaETH's FDV would also be $1.14 billion.

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

ABCDE Venture co-founder BMAN expressed support for megaETH: "They could have raised more funds but turned down a $1 billion offer from VCs, choosing to use the retro ICO method to give more tokens to the community. I believe this is an attractive opportunity for liquid funds, and it is also one of the most asymmetric opportunities recently. As an investor, I am glad that Ethereum has returned to the simple, retro ICO era."

The team member of the NFT project CyberKongz, enzoblue, even boldly stated that anyone who does not want a whitelist spot should feel free to DM him.

Some community players have seen through the reason behind megaETH's "shell sale." On one hand, using SBT can avoid speculation of NFTs in the secondary market; on the other hand, clearly defining NFTs as "collectibles" reasonably mitigates legal risks while offering private placement prices similar to VCs to the community in the form of NFTs. megaETH co-founder Bing Brother also stated in response to community doubts: "We cannot directly ICO tokens to the community; we can only lower the valuation and give it to the community in the form of NFTs. Whether people buy or not depends on their own valuation of the project."

Con: Mainnet Not Launched, Early Harvesting

Of course, in this mixed reality of the crypto world, where truth and falsehood are intertwined and innocence relies solely on eloquence, it is often not enough to just listen to what the project party says to understand their true intentions. Therefore, some community players have raised doubts about megaETH, believing that in the current market environment, a $540 million valuation is still too high, and that the project party is looking to harvest early by selling tokens before launching the mainnet, taking advantage of the abundant liquidity in the bull market.

During this cycle, there is a prevalent phenomenon in the market where project parties issue tokens or list coins as the endpoint, with many projects stopping operations secretly after profiting from token issuance, only hoping for tokens to unlock as soon as possible. With past experiences in mind, megaETH's disguised ICO occurring before the mainnet launch, with the real product yet to be delivered, raises concerns about whether there will still be motivation to continue development after securing funds. Is the product worthy of the current valuation? These questions inevitably raise worries, especially since, in the current environment of imperfect regulation, the highest constraint rule for Web3 project parties is their own moral standards: is building prioritized or is money prioritized?

Chinese KOL Fengmi published a long article questioning megaETH's NFT sale activity, stating that megaETH does not genuinely care about community experience. If they truly cared, they should distribute tokens through a fair mechanism (such as game contributions, activity rewards, or even NFT staking), while the project party seems to oppose "meaningless airdrop point systems," but in reality, they are just finding a justification for directly selling tokens.

KOL Fengwuxiang also posted concerns about megaETH's future airdrop ratio, noting that historically, no matter how hard-working players are, they cannot compete with wealthy players. He also mentioned that compared to Monad, which is still focused on ecological construction and values ecological activities, megaETH is obtaining funds through ICOs and no longer even needs CEX to provide liquidity for exit, which may not be a good thing for the industry.

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