On October 12, the launchpad MetaDao on the Solana chain launched its new ICO projects: AVICI, LOYAL, ZKSOL, and PAYSTREAM. Just a week prior, while the BSC chain was caught in a meme coin frenzy, MetaDAO's popularity continued to rise within the Solana ecosystem. Its platform token META saw an increase of over 3 times during the National Day holiday, becoming one of the best-performing assets on Solana. The ICO project UMBRA, which launched on October 6, skyrocketed from a pre-sale price of $0.3 to $2.1, yielding a return rate of up to 700%.
This series of data not only reflects MetaDAO's strong fundraising capabilities as a "chain-based fundraising engine," but also indicates that the speculative enthusiasm in the Solana ecosystem is fully returning. MetaDAO may become the core narrative of the next phase of the Solana ecosystem.
From "Voting" to "Betting": MetaDAO's Market-Oriented Governance Experiment
MetaDAO operates quite differently from traditional Launchpad or ICO platforms. Its logic is simple: let the market decide the fate of the projects.
When a project initiates fundraising on MetaDAO, all the USDC raised does not go directly into the team's account but enters an on-chain treasury governed by the market. If the team wants to use the funds, issue more tokens, modify parameters, or even adjust the product direction, they must propose a plan. Whether the proposal passes is not determined by voting but by trading—this is the core governance mechanism of MetaDAO, called Futarchy.
This mechanism is somewhat similar to a prediction market; investors are not "voting" but "betting." If they believe a proposal will increase the token's value, they buy into the "pass" market; if they think the proposal is harmful, they buy into the "reject" market. Ultimately, the market price itself becomes the basis for judgment—the side with the value increase wins, and the proposal is executed. This design completely frees governance from the structure of "whoever has more votes decides" and directly links every decision to the token's value.
This mechanism has two significant advantages.
First, it prevents project teams from "rug pulling." In traditional ICO models, once the project successfully raises funds, investors almost lose their checks and balances, and funds can be misappropriated or disappear at any time. In MetaDAO, all USDC raised is held in an on-chain treasury, and any spending or token minting must be verified through market competition. If the project team exits or the market value falls below the on-hand funds, anyone can propose to redeem the funds. The governance logic no longer relies on "trusting the team" but on "trusting the mechanism."
Second, it binds incentives to long-term value. MetaDAO's ICO model adopts a highly variable and transparent issuance method. Investors receive tokens in proportion to their investment in the project, while the founding team's earnings are locked in a "performance package" linked to price performance. The team can only unlock corresponding proportions of incentives when the token price reaches 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, and 32x, and all unlocks must go through an 18-month lock-up period and a 3-month time-weighted average price verification.
This means that only when the project continues to grow and the token is genuinely recognized by the market can the team realize returns. This "delayed gratification" structure redefines the boundary between short-term speculation and long-term building.
Which Projects Are Worth Watching
@UmbraPrivacy
UMBRA is a privacy protocol built on @ArciumHQ on Solana. Its goal is not simply "private transactions" but to provide a compliant and auditable privacy infrastructure for the entire on-chain financial system. By constructing an auditable anonymous transfer system, UMBRA allows transactions to be verified on-chain without exposing any key details, enabling privacy and trust to coexist. UMBRA's governance is completely decentralized—fundraising, tokens, and treasury are all controlled by the community. The team and early supporters share 13.5 million tokens, but they must be locked for 18 months before they can be gradually unlocked, with their earnings linked to token performance.
@AviciMoney
Avici is a new crypto bank built on Solana, aiming to create a user self-custody, trustless global internet banking system. Users can open a stablecoin Visa card in minutes, spend directly with crypto assets, and complete deposits through virtual accounts. Avici also plans to launch an on-chain credit score, using zero-knowledge proofs to replace traditional credit checks, allowing users to obtain fairer credit services while ensuring privacy. Currently, the platform has over $1 million in spending, a retention rate of 70%, and more than 9,000 users. Avici will launch its ICO for Ownership Coin on October 14 at MetaDAO.
@loyal_hq
Loyal is a decentralized intelligent reasoning protocol built on Solana and MagicBlock infrastructure, aiming to rebuild a privacy-focused and open-source intelligent network. It allows users to securely call AI models and have private conversations on-chain. Users' wallets generate a PDA (Program Derived Address), which records sessions and acts as a payment settlement node. AI reasoning fees are automatically distributed to computing nodes, developers, and the protocol itself, achieving a fully decentralized incentive loop. The project will launch its ICO on October 18 at MetaDAO, with a total issuance of 10 million tokens and a minimum fundraising amount of $500,000. 28% of the team's tokens will be locked for 18 months and unlocked in batches based on price multiples (2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x).
@ZKLSOL
ZKLSOL is the first protocol on Solana to combine privacy protection with yield generation. Traditional mixers require funds to be locked for long periods to enhance anonymity, which means assets are idle. ZKLSOL, on the other hand, is based on liquid staking, allowing deposited SOL to earn yield while users wait for privacy mixing. In terms of the yield model, ZKLSOL's flywheel logic is clear: users deposit SOL → generate ZKLSOL → staking generates yield → pay a small fee when withdrawing and transferring → fees and yields are injected into a reward pool, driving APY increases, attracting more depositors, and further enhancing anonymity depth and fund security. The project will launch its ICO on October 19 at MetaDAO, with all raised funds used for security audits, LP expansion, and compliance access.
@Paystreamlabs
Paystream is a DeFi lending protocol that combines peer-to-peer matching with liquidity aggregation, aiming to maximize the efficiency of on-chain capital utilization. It achieves efficient capital circulation and yield maximization through a two-layer structure of a P2P matching engine + smart liquidity pool (LLP). At its core, Paystream's matching engine directly matches lenders and borrowers, ensuring both parties receive the best rates; when the market temporarily lacks matches, the system automatically routes idle funds to the underlying yield pool, allowing funds to continue generating returns. The protocol's income mainly comes from two parts: one is the matching spread and lending interest sharing; the other is fees charged to users when borrowing, leveraging, or withdrawing funds. This project will launch its ICO on October 23 at MetaDAO.
Conclusion
The recent rise of MetaDAO is somewhat similar to the once-popular Believe ecosystem. The former reshapes fundraising tools with its "anti-rug" mechanism ICO, while the latter ignites funding sentiment in the form of a Launchpad. Both have jointly propelled Solana's continuity in the ICM (Internet Capital Market) ecosystem direction and gradually achieved a transformation from MEME to "sustainable speculation." Against the backdrop of popular sectors such as privacy, payments, and AI making their rounds, MetaDAO may be becoming a key support point for the recovery of the Solana ecosystem.
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