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Good Morning
MegaETH's MEGA token went live Thursday after the network cleared its first performance milestone, kicking off the first real test of KPI-gated unlocks at scale. With 53.3% of supply tied to onchain KPIs rather than a vesting calendar, the launch puts a new alignment model in front of the market.
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In Today's Email:
What Matters: MegaETH's MEGA Token Goes Live 👀
Founders Highlight: Fed of Printr 👨
Deal Flows: Tether Leads Belo's $14M Series A 💰
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Narratives: Performance-gated supply
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WHAT MATTERS
MegaETH's MEGA Token Goes Live
State of play: MegaETH's MEGA token launched Thursday, closing a seven-day countdown that began after the Ethereum scaling network hit its first performance milestone.
The countdown triggered last week when 10 "Mega Mafia" apps cleared the first KPI tied to activity around USDM, the protocol's Ethena-co-developed stablecoin.
53.3% of MEGA's fixed 10B supply is linked to performance-based KPIs rather than standard time-based vesting, an unusual release structure.
USDM circulation jumped from $62.9M last week to over $300M during the TGE, still well short of the $500M native stablecoin target.
Binance, KuCoin, and Bitget opened MEGA spot trading at 11:00 UTC, with Binance applying a seed tag to its listing.
The MegaETH Foundation has said it will use USDM revenue to accumulate MEGA, hardwiring network usage into token demand.
Why it matters: MEGA is the first major test of KPI-gated token unlocks at scale, a model that could reshape how L2s align supply with actual usage instead of arbitrary cliffs.
Our take: It's less a market test than a curated one, and the real question is whether USDM growth reflects organic demand or foundation-engineered flywheel mechanics.
For builders and investors: We should watch USDM supply and KPI disclosures closely, since unlock pace, not price action, will dictate MEGA's float over the next year.
BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT
Fed of Printr
Fed just stepped down from his position as the CEO of Printr recently after the controversy related to $FAX.
Previous background: There’s no available information on Fed’s background.
The big idea: Fed argues that token creation should work like cloud infrastructure, every economic parameter (starting price, supply, liquidity depth, fee routing, graduation market cap) is configurable, no-code, and deployable across 8+ chains in minutes.
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INSIGHTS
North Korea Drives 76% of 2026 Crypto Hack Losses
Source: TRM Labs
TRM Labs says North Korean actors stole ~577M across two April exploits, accounting for 76% of all crypto hack losses in 2026 and pushing cumulative DPRK-attributed theft past $6B since 2017.
The $292M KelpDAO and $285M Drift Protocol attacks made up just 3% of incident count but drove the vast majority of losses.
Drift's attackers spent months socially engineering employees before deploying 31 pre-signed withdrawals that drained funds in 12 minutes on April 1.
KelpDAO's breach exploited a single-verifier LayerZero bridge design, with attackers draining ~116,500 rsETH by compromising RPC nodes.
North Korea's share of global hack losses has climbed from under 10% in 2020-2021 to 64% in 2025 and 76% so far in 2026.
Laundering paths are diverging: Drift funds sit dormant on Ethereum awaiting a structured cashout, while KelpDAO proceeds moved fast through THORChain via Chinese intermediaries.
DEAL FLOWS
Tether Leads Belo's $14M Series A
Deal flows soared this week - we saw $280M+ in deals 💼
Argentina-based digital wallet Belo raised $14M in a Series A led by Tether to scale stablecoin-powered payments across Latin America.
Belo combines local currency, digital dollars, FX and cross-border transfers in a single app, with crypto rails running behind the scenes.
The company has crossed 3M users since launching in Buenos Aires in 2021 and says it has run profitably for three years.
Funds will support expansion into Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, plus a deeper push into Brazil's freelancer and remote-worker segment.
Titan Fund, The Venture City, Mindset Ventures and G2 joined Tether in the round.
Tether's lead signals a broader strategy to embed USDT in Latin American payment flows, where dollar demand and inflation hedging are structural.
Deal flows in the past week:
Robin Markets, $475K Angel Round
Kaisar Network, $4M Pre-Seed Round
Legend Trade, $3.5M Seed Round
Nuva Labs, $5.2M Seed Round
Belo, $14M Series A Round
Liquid, $18M Series A Round
Blockworks, $192M Series A Round
Four Pillars, Undisclosed $ Series A Round
Squads, $18M Strategic Round
Fere AI, $1.3M Unknown Round
Fence, $20M Unknown Round
QUICK BITES
MegaETH token goes live.
Crypto market structure bill nears May push.
Polymarket taps Chainalysis to police insider trading.
North Korea accounts for 76% of 2026 crypto hack losses.
Crypto hacks hit record high in April as exploits kept piling up.
Senate moves to ban themselves from prediction market trading.
SBI Holdings in talks to acquire stake in crypto exchange Bitbank.
Tether posts over $1B Q1 profit as reserve buffer reaches record $8.2B.
Arbitrum DAO starts vote to release 30,766 frozen ETH to DeFi United.
Brazil central bank prohibits crypto use in regulated cross-border payments.
NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME
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