MegaETH is shutting down its Mega Mafia accelerator after two years, saying the program helped startups raise substantial capital but failed to retain enough value within its ecosystem.
Summary
- MegaETH ends Mega Mafia after the most successful incubated applications stopped relying on its blockchain network.
- Two accelerator cohorts supported approximately 20 teams that collectively raised approximately $80 million from investors.
- MegaETH will redirect funding towards consumer applications and products designed specifically for its infrastructure.
Core team member Shuyao Kong said on X that the most successful applications supported by the program are no longer built on MegaETH.
The accelerator supported approximately 20 teams across two cohorts, which collectively raised approximately $80 million from pre-seed to Series A rounds. MegaETH selected teams to work closely with its core developers and provided technical, management, and market-building support. However, the network has not taken equity, governance rights, or ownership stakes in the projects it helped build.
MegaETH transfers its resources to proprietary applications
Kong said MegaETH originally thought the founders would remain aligned with the network without formal ownership agreements. This approach gave rise to successful startups, but many later chose different technical paths. “Very little of this value transferred to Mega,” she wrote, while announcing that there would be no Mega Mafia 3.0 cohort.
Several projects show how this model has changed. Global Token Exchange, or GTE, decided to create its own chain after participating in the first accelerator cohort.
Social attention marketplace Noise then chose Base, while HelloTrade turned to Monad. Meanwhile, stablecoin project Cap was launched on MegaETH but pursued a broader multi-chain strategy.
The decision comes just months after Mega Mafia apps helped MegaETH achieve a key network milestone. MegaETH launched its MEGA token on April 30 after 10 applications in the ecosystem reached the first performance target required to trigger the token generation event. This milestone directly linked the accelerator to the network’s first growth strategy.
MegaETH has since expanded the economic systems around its blockchain. As crypto.news reported in May, the MegaETH Foundation launched a MEGA token buyback program funded by net income generated by the USD stablecoin issuer. The structure connects stablecoin activity to recurring token purchases as MegaETH develops high-throughput on-chain applications.
However, ending Mega Mafia changes how the team plans to create future demand. Kong said MegaETH would focus its resources on “OMEGA” applications, meaning products designed around capabilities the team believes are specific to MegaETH. The network also plans to invest more directly in first-party consumer applications.
Under the new approach, MegaETH hopes to build direct relationships with users instead of relying primarily on independent startups to build products and ultimately return value to the network. Kong said proprietary development would also give the team greater responsibility for product outcomes.
The move comes after Mega Mafia played a pivotal role in moving MegaETH from development to mainnet activity and launching its MEGA token. The network is currently testing whether creating more consumer-facing products itself can bring users, activity and economic value closer to its core ecosystem.
