# MegaETH used Ethos scores to filter its $1.39B token sale

Published 2026-02-09 by Ethos · https://www.ethos.network/post/megaeth-token-sale-ethos-score-filtering

> MegaETH’s token sale drew $1.39B from 53,000+ participants. With Ethos scores in its allocation system, it narrowed them to about 6,000 and blocked sybil clusters.

MegaETH’s public token sale in October 2025 drew **over $1.39 billion** in commitments from **53,000+ participants** against a target of about **$50M**. Using Ethos credibility scores as one layer of its allocation system, MegaETH narrowed that crowd to **about 6,000** qualified allocations and blocked coordinated sybil activity worth millions.

For any team running a token sale, the problem is familiar: more demand than supply, and no easy way to tell committed supporters from wallets set up to farm an allocation. MegaETH had said earlier that it would consider Ethos scores in its distribution. This is how the sale played out.

## The challenge: a 28x oversubscribed sale

The sale was oversubscribed within **5 minutes**. By the close, the numbers looked like this:

-   **Participants**: 53,000+
-   **Total committed**: $1.39B
-   **Raise target**: about $50M
-   **Oversubscription**: 28x

Demand wasn’t the only issue. Bubblemaps flagged **20+ entities** using multiple wallets to get around the sale’s **$186K max bid**. One sybil cluster alone accounted for **$5M+** in capital.

Namik Muduroglu, Chief Strategy Officer at MegaETH Labs, explained why a first-come or pro-rata approach wouldn’t work:

> “The sale was 28x oversubscribed. It makes no sense to allocate tokens to someone who wants to sell them before they even receive them.”

## How Ethos fit into the allocation

MegaETH built a multi-layered allocation system. Ethos credibility scores were one input, alongside:

-   Onchain activity
-   Social signals
-   MegaETH-specific engagement

The scoring was designed to reward real believers rather than points grinders. Allocation was tiered by score, so participants with stronger reputations stood a better chance of being accepted.

Participants could see what mattered. Grail.eth, a MegaETH sale participant, summed up the criteria as they understood them:

> “What’s the best chance to get some size in? As stated: onchain reputation (ETHOS score), onchain history, social reputation, history supporting MegaETH...”

## The result: 53,000 down to about 6,000

The filtering cut the applicant pool sharply:

-   **Participants filtered**: from 53,000+ to about 6,000
-   **Share of applicants filtered**: 89.9%
-   **Sybil clusters detected**: 20+ entities
-   **Sybil capital blocked**: $5M+ from a single cluster

MegaETH launched mainnet on **February 9, 2026**, with a holder base made up of real, credible supporters rather than the multi-wallet operations that tried to bypass the bid cap.

## What the sale showed

Ethos drew four takeaways from the MegaETH sale:

-   **Credibility over quantity**: qualified leads have 100x the spending power of the average onchain user, so a smaller, credible group isn’t a weaker one.
-   **Free to use**: no API key is required. One API call returns a credibility score, vouches and reviews.
-   **Aligned incentives**: score-tiered allocation means real reputation gets rewarded.
-   **Community buy-in**: participants understood and respected the methodology.

The last point matters as much as the numbers. Turning away nearly nine in ten applicants could easily have caused a backlash. Because MegaETH stated its criteria up front, including Ethos scores, participants like Grail.eth knew what would count before they committed.

## Why it matters for other sales

Sybil resistance in token sales usually comes down to wallet analysis after the fact. MegaETH’s approach added reputation as a signal: what other people have said about a participant, recorded onchain through reviews and vouches. A cluster of fresh wallets can split a bid to get under a cap, but it has a much harder time showing a credible history on a network built on what others say about an account.

The integration cost MegaETH nothing. The same score infrastructure is available free to other projects.

*This article is adapted from the [Ethos case study](https://casestudies.ethos.network/megaeth).*