MegaETH pre-deposit campaign descends into chaos

Key Takeaways

What went wrong with MegaETH’s pre-deposit campaign?

The campaign suffered a catastrophic multisig error, where the team accidentally set a 4/4 signature requirement instead of the intended 3/4. 

How did the community react to the chaos?

Sentiment was split approximately 60/40 bearish, with critics calling it a “clown show” and demanding refunds, while defenders praised the “raw demand” that locked in $500M.

MegaETH’s 25 November pre-deposit campaign was supposed to be a straightforward liquidity bootstrap ahead of mainnet launch. 

Instead, it turned into hours of crashes, cap changes, and accusations of rug pulls.

The 156-second stampede

The campaign opened at 9:00 AM EST for KYC’d Sonar wallet holders, offering a $250 million cap on USDC bridges from Ethereum. 

Early depositors would receive 2.5% $MEGA airdrop multipliers—premium terms that sparked immediate FOMO.

Then everything broke.

Third-party APIs collapsed under demand within minutes. The site stayed down for an hour.

When it finally reopened at 10:00 AM, the entire $250 million cap filled in just 156 seconds. Whales and bots gorged while retail scrambled.

The MegaETH multisig disaster

At 10:15 AM, the MegaETH team announced they’d raise the cap to $1 billion “to give users access to USDm day 1.” 

Early depositors immediately revolted—this meant 4x dilution on their yields with no warning and no withdrawal option.

However, the team clarified at 10:30 AM that “first wave unaffected” through multiplier protections and scheduled the bridge reopening for 11:00 AM.

Then came the critical error.

While preparing the $1 billion transaction on their Gnosis Safe multisig, reportedly, the team accidentally required 4/4 signatures instead of leaving it at 3/4 pending.

This made the transaction executable by anyone.

At 10:26 AM, 34 minutes before the scheduled reopening, a user spotted the blunder and executed the transaction. Deposits exploded uncontrollably.

Damage control gone wrong

Panicked, the team attempted multiple cap adjustments:

• Queued a revert to $400 million—overshot
• Canceled and rebuilt for $500 million—executed successfully
• Cap hit instantly again

By noon EST, they abandoned the $1 billion plan entirely, citing “unexpected issues.” Withdrawals were enabled for opt-outs, but uptake remained below 5%.

Source: X

The aftermath

Approximately $500 million now sits locked in team-controlled contracts. No exploits occurred, the contracts passed Zellic and Slowmist audits, but the multisig slip-up exposed alarming operational sloppiness.

On X, #MegaETH trended with over 50,000 mentions. Bulls celebrated the “insane demand” that locked half a billion in a bear market. Bears demanded refunds and mocked the “rug.”

A notable crypto commentator framed it as an “insane ride”.

With $MEGA pre-market hovering at $2-$3 and mainnet still scheduled for December, will hype survive this hangover?