As Memecoin Share Drops 90%, Structured ICOs Fill the Void

Memecoin's centralized exchange volume share relative to other sectors has been on a downtrend over the past year - down from a peak of 22% in November 2024 to ~2% in October 2025. In-spite of this, crypto speculation has not disappeared, it has evolved. The market’s focus has shifted from unstructured gambling toward structured speculation - systems that preserve open participation while introducing accountability and liquidity management.

The emergence of Internet Capital Markets (ICMs) represents this shift. ICMs formalize retail participation in token-based fundraising, combining public access with capital discipline.

Source: CoinDesk Data

ICM is more of an evolution of Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) - open-access fundraising events that dominated 2017 but failed due to lack of structure, post-sale liquidity, and accountability.

The First Experiments: Believe and LaunchCoin

The early experiments of Believe and LaunchCoin revived the concept in 2023-24 by enabling anyone to raise or invest in tokenized ventures. The trend did not sustain as there was no real structure to the raises, no prior due diligence to the launches, no post launch liquidity guarantees or ICO investor protection mechanisms in place. These failures reinforced a key insight: demand for retail speculation is permanent, but unstructured markets are unsustainable.

ICM 2.0: Speculation with Compliance

Modern ICMs integrate compliance, liquidity, and post-launch accountability. Distinct design elements include:

• Automated liquidity provisioning: smart contracts seed on-chain liquidity post-ICO to prevent early price crashes.
• Pro-rata allocation and refunds: oversubscriptions are handled automatically, ensuring fair pricing and refund of excess funds.
• Regulatory configurability: platforms like Echo and Legion incorporate optional KYC modules aligned with MiCA standards.
• Governance continuity: post-raise decision-making is increasingly on-chain, linking project direction to investor consensus.

Together, these mechanisms enable the transition from speculative chaos to controlled, data-driven capital formation.

MetaDAO: Case Study in Market-Governed ICOs

MetaDAO operationalizes the ICM thesis through its “Unruggable ICO” model. The platform automates fundraising, liquidity creation, and governance under one architecture. Built on Solana, MetaDAO’s system ensures that project treasuries remain DAO-controlled, with all spending and structural changes subject to market-based approval via futarchy.

• Network: Solana
• Circulating Supply: 22,835,659
• Total Supply: 22,835,659
• Core Mechanism: AMM-auction fundraising with futarchy governance
• Fee Model: 0.25% trading fee on governance markets, accruing to the MetaDAO treasury
• Launches: Umbra Privacy, Avici Money, mtnCapital, zkSOL and Loyal

MetaDAO employs a capped contribution model with a pro-rata allocation system. Investors commit USDC over a fixed period; if the total exceeds the target cap, tokens are distributed proportionally and surplus funds are refunded. This structure ensures price fairness and prevents manipulation by large wallets or automated bots.

Upon a successful sale, 20% of the raised USDC and a defined token share (e.g., 5 million tokens) are deposited into an AMM pool. The project treasury acts as a stabilizer, buying below ICO price and selling above it to maintain price integrity. This automated approach creates a liquidity floor-reducing volatility and building investor confidence.

Each project operates through dual outcome markets (“Pass” vs. “Fail”) where participants trade on which decision will maximize token value. The higher-priced market dictates the DAO’s execution outcome. This model directly aligns governance incentives with market expectations of value creation, transforming decision-making into a measurable, financially staked process.

The Economics: META Token, Indirect Benefits, and Thin Liquidity

MetaDAO’s token, META, sits at the center of this whole experiment.

• Every trade in the futarchy AMM carries a 0.25% fee that flows into the DAO treasury
• The treasury, in theory, underpins META’s potential value accrual - more trading, more launches, more fees.
• Currently, the protocol is doing $2-$8m in volumes per day.

Source: Dune Analytics

For the META token, there’s no staking yield or revenue share. META’s value comes from belief in MetaDAO’s growth, not cash flow. However, it is one of the only liquid ways to gain access to the new structured ICM meta. For the protocol, liquidity is also a weak point. Market depth is thin, so futarchy outcomes can swing wildly with small bets.

The table below summarizes the current launches and their ROIs since launch. These outcomes currently validate MetaDAO’s thesis: high demand, structured refunds, and sustainable price action. Oversubscription ratios above 10× demonstrate continued retail appetite for fair-access, transparent fundraising.

Source: MetaDao

Internet Capital Markets institutionalize crypto’s oldest instinct - speculation. Platforms like MetaDAO show that open participation, liquidity, and accountability can transform speculative energy into a sustainable form of capital formation. The protocol’s success isn’t just in launch returns - it’s in proving that speculative demand, when structured, can become sustainable.

In essence, ICMs like MetaDAO don’t end speculation; they make it durable.