MegaETH to offer 5% of its total MEGA supply in English auction at baseline $1 million fully diluted valuation

Ethereum scaling solution MegaETH plans to launch a public auction of its MEGA token on Oct. 27, offering 5% of the project’s total supply starting at a surprisingly low $1 million fully diluted valuation. The sale will be conducted on the crypto crowdfunding platform Sonar, which was recently acquired by Coinbase.

According to an announcement on Wednesday, the sale will run for 72 hours as an English Auction with a ceiling price of $0.0999 per token, or a maximum FDV of $999 million. There will also be a maximum bid of $186,282 and a minimum of $2,650 per individual.

MEGA's opening price will start at $0.0001 and grow as more buyers purchase tokens. The project is unlocking 500 million tokens out of its 10 billion cap.

Several crypto industry observers initially thought the starting "$1M FDV" was a typo. The Block confirmed with the MegaETH team that the baseline FDV is correct.

In a blog post on X, founding contributor of MegaLabs Namik Muduroglu explained that traditional token airdrops "never made sense" as a way to align community members, inspiring the project to take a different approach.

"We want to build a community composed of people who show conviction in our thesis by purchasing and using the asset," Muduroglu wrote. Notably, the project will also "prioritize existing MegaETH community" members if the English auction is oversubscribed.

"The bimodal allocation process ensures broad token distribution while prioritizing key contributors," Muduroglu said. If oversubscribed, MegaETH core supporters will receive priority allocations, though at least 5,000 participants will receive the baseline allocation starting at $2,650.

The sale will be conducted through the USDT stablecoin on the Ethereum mainnet. Buyers can choose to lock up their allocations for one year to receive a 10% discount, according to an FAQ. Only verified accredited U.S. persons and verified non-U.S. persons will be considered as eligible participants, with only one wallet address permitted.