- The “real-time” MegaETH blockchain will launch on mainnet in February.
- The project has attracted a remarkable list of venture capitalists and angel investors.
- A 2025 ICO for its MEGA token was largely oversubscribed.
MegaETH, a super-fast blockchain backed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, is set to launch on February 9.
This will be one of the crypto industry’s most anticipated debuts in 2026. The self-proclaimed “real-time” blockchain claims it can achieve “100,000 transactions per second with millisecond responsiveness” while maintaining compatibility with Ethereum.
The promise attracted investment from cryptocurrency venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital, as well as Buterin, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, EigenCloud founder Sreeram Kannan, and Helius founder Mert Mumtaz.
It also attracted a rush of retail investors. Last year, MegaETH’s initial coin offering was oversubscribed, attracting 11,534 wallets that had pledged more than $300 million.
But only $50 million worth of tokens had been put up for sale, leading MegaETH parent company MegaLabs to use investors’ social media history to determine allocations.
The founders of MegaETH presented the blockchain as a true “world computer”. This is the same vision that drives Ethereum developers, but it has been thwarted by Ethereum’s high cost and relatively limited throughput.
“Real-time blockchains will blur the line between Web2 servers and blockchains,” reads a lengthy explainer on the MegaETH website. “After a decade of experimentation, we can finally tackle blockchain applications at Web2 scale.”
Developers have already started creating video games, prediction markets, and payment apps on a MegaETH testnet.
Last year, MegaLabs said the blockchain would have a native stablecoin, USDm, backed by BlackRock’s tokenized treasury fund and issued by Ethena.
MegaETH’s token, MEGA, was trading at $0.18 on hyperliquid futures markets on Wednesday, down 60% from its November high of $0.50.
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ DeFi correspondent based in New York. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.
