MegaETH’s ambitious $500 million pre-deposit campaign has been completely unwound after a cascade of technical failures and operational missteps derailed the sale — in what many are calling one of 2025’s most chaotic crypto fundraises. The project’s pre-launch “Pre-Deposit Bridge,” meant to bootstrap liquidity for its native stablecoin and support the upcoming Frontier mainnet, instead turned into a high-stakes fiasco. From the very start, transaction failures caused by an incorrect SaleUUID parameter forced the team to trigger a multisig update — setting the stage for deeper problems.
KYC infrastructure also crumbled: the third-party provider tasked with identity verification imposed strict rate limits that blocked significant portions of user traffic. The resulting downtime led to a scramble once deposits reopened — users refreshing the page en masse filled the initial $250 million cap within minutes.
In a bid to ride the wave of demand, the team tried raising the deposit cap first to $400 million, then to $500 million — and was even planning a $1 billion target. However, a mis-set multisig transaction was executed prematurely by an external actor, prematurely reopening deposits and triggering an uncontrolled flood of capital.
Faced with spiralling risk and community backlash, MegaETH conceded defeat. On November 27, the team announced they would refund all user deposits via a newly audited smart contract — effectively rewinding the entire fundraising event.
Although no user funds were reportedly “at risk,” the chaotic execution revealed critical vulnerabilities in the project’s infrastructure and raised serious concerns about its readiness for mainnet launch.
As things stand, MegaETH is facing mounting pressure to prove that it can salvage its roadmap — or risk eroding trust among early backers and the broader crypto community.
