MegaETH Ends Accelerator to Double Down on Own Apps

MegaETH is ending its startup accelerator, Mega Mafia, after concluding that helping founders raise capital did not generate lasting value for its ecosystem, prompting a shift toward developing applications in-house

Summary:

The accelerator backed about 20 startups that collectively raised roughly $80 million.
Several high-profile projects later migrated to rival blockchain networks or pursued independent strategies.
MegaETH will redirect resources toward first-party consumer applications built around its own infrastructure.
Existing accelerator participants will continue receiving support, but no new cohort is planned.

Startup Success Didn’t Translate Into Ecosystem Growth

MegaETH said it will discontinue its Mega Mafia accelerator, marking a strategic departure from its ecosystem-building approach.

According to core team member Shuyao Kong in X, the program successfully helped early-stage startups secure funding but fell short of strengthening the network itself. Mega Mafia supported around 20 projects that collectively raised approximately $80 million, yet much of that growth failed to remain within the MegaETH ecosystem.

After spending the last two years building the MegaMafia, we’ve decided to sunset the program.

While it was a success in many ways, we believe that the program was built on assumptions that no longer hold.

Here are some reflections, and what’s coming up next.

> We had real…

— Shuyao Kong (@hotpot_dao) July 16, 2026

The team said its original assumption – that founders would naturally stay aligned with the network without formal equity ownership or governance incentives – proved incorrect as projects matured and pursued opportunities elsewhere.

Among the startups that eventually moved beyond MegaETH were Global Token Exchange (GTE), which opted to build its own blockchain, Noise, which migrated to Base, HelloTrade, which shifted to Monad, and Cap, which adopted a multichain strategy. Other projects, including Avon and Valhalla, have since ceased operations.

MegaETH Bets on Building Instead of Incubating

Rather than incubating third-party teams, MegaETH plans to focus on developing its own consumer-facing products.

The company said future investment will center on what it calls “OMEGA” applications – software designed specifically to leverage MegaETH’s high-performance infrastructure, wallet technology and stablecoin ecosystem.

By building products internally, the network expects to exercise greater control over development, user experience and the economic activity generated by those applications. The strategy also allows MegaETH to establish direct relationships with users instead of relying on independent startups to drive adoption.

The company confirmed there will be no Mega Mafia 3.0, although existing accelerator participants will continue to receive operational support.

A Broader Rethink of Blockchain Growth Strategies

MegaETH’s decision reflects a broader debate across the blockchain industry over how networks should attract developers and users.

Many ecosystems have relied on grants, accelerators and incentive programs to seed activity, but retaining successful projects has often proved more difficult as developers expand to multiple chains or launch independent infrastructure.

MegaETH’s shift suggests the company believes long-term network value is created less by funding external startups and more by owning the applications that generate user engagement and on-chain activity. If that approach succeeds, it could encourage other blockchain ecosystems to place greater emphasis on first-party products rather than ecosystem subsidies as competition for developers continues to intensify.

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Author

Alexander Stefanov

Reporter at CoinsPress

Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.