Vitalik-backed MegaETH blockchain to launch in February

MegaETH, a hyper-fast blockchain backed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, is set to launch on February 9.

It will be among the crypto industry’s most anticipated debuts in 2026. The self-described “real-time” blockchain claims it can achieve “100,000 transactions per second with millisecond-level responsiveness” while maintaining compatibility with Ethereum.

That promise has lured investments from crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital, as well as Buterin, fellow Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, EigenCloud founder Sreeram Kannan, and Helius founder Mert Mumtaz.

It also lured a stampede of retail investors. Last year, MegaETH’s initial coin offering was oversubscribed, drawing 11,534 wallets that had pledged over $300 million.

But only $50 million in tokens had been made available for purchase, leading MegaETH parent company MegaLabs to use investors’ social media history to determine allocations.

MegaETH’s founders have presented the blockchain as a true “world computer.” It’s the same vision that animates Ethereum developers, but it’s been stymied by Ethereum’s high cost and relatively limited throughput.

“Real-time blockchains will blur the line between Web2 servers and blockchains,” a lengthy explainer on the MegaETH website reads. “After a decade of experimentation, we can finally approach Web2-scale applications on-chain.”

Developers have already begun building videogames, prediction markets, and payment applications on a MegaETH test network.

Last year, MegaLabs said the blockchain would have a native stablecoin, USDm, backed by BlackRock’s tokenised treasury fund and issued by Ethena.

MegaETH’s token, MEGA, was trading at $0.18 on Hyperliquid futures markets on Wednesday, a 60% drop from its November high of $0.50.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.