MEGA Cuts 20% of Staff Days After $30M AI Product Pledge

MEGA, the organization formerly known as the MegaETH Foundation, cut 20% of its staff on November 13, 2026 — three days after pledging $30 million to build products on its own network. Co-founder Shuyao Kong confirmed the restructuring, which lands on a chain whose total value locked has already fallen roughly 95% from its May 2026 peak.

The numbers frame the decision. MegaETH's TVL peaked above $245 million in May 2026, per Crypto Briefing, and stood at roughly $12 million by the time of the layoffs. That collapse is the financial backdrop for a strategy shift leadership had been telegraphing: stop waiting for outside builders and ship first-party products.

Which roles did the layoffs hit?

The cuts fell hardest on teams handling early chain development, wallet tooling and ecosystem support, according to Crypto Briefing — the functions built to attract and onboard outside projects. Core founders and engineering staff stayed in place.

That split is deliberate. Shedding outward-facing roles while keeping the technical core intact signals where MEGA sees leverage now: building products it controls rather than courting developers it doesn't. The Defiant noted that Kong's disclosure landed just three days after the $30 million product pledge, compressing the timeline between commitment and cost-cutting into a single week.

Where does the $30 million come from?

The commitment is not a new funding round. MEGA is reallocating $30 million from its existing treasury toward building directly on MegaETH, starting with an AI inference marketplace targeted for December 2026.

The organization brands the broader vision "purified intelligence" — the use of cryptography to make AI inference verifiable and trustworthy. The rebrand from MegaETH Foundation to MEGA tracks the same shift: the old name described a support structure for one blockchain, while the new one leaves room to operate as a product company.

What does the December marketplace actually do?

The planned public AI inference marketplace would bring buyers and sellers of inference capacity into a single venue, with MegaETH's technology positioned to offer competitive pricing and transparency that centralized providers can't match, according to the project's materials.

December is the next real test. If the marketplace ships on schedule, MEGA holds a proof of concept for the entire pivot — treasury-funded product development replacing ecosystem subsidies. If it slips, the layoffs and rebrand risk reading as reorganization without results.

Why the restructuring reads as a bet on itself

With ecosystem traction stalled and TVL down to about $12 million, the $30 million treasury commitment and the December launch target amount to MEGA betting its own balance sheet on first-party execution. The organization has kept its engineering core and founders intact while trimming the teams whose job was growth from the outside.

Kong confirmed the cuts on November 13, 2026. The market gets its answer when the AI inference marketplace either launches next month or doesn't.

This article is for information only and is not financial advice.