Paradigm's new favorite makes a quick turn, where does Noise's confidence in abandoning the MegaETH ecosystem come from?

MegaETH ecosystem experiences personnel changes again. On January 14, under the auspices of Paradigm’s leading investment, the early incubation project Noise announced the completion of a $7.1 million seed round. However, the real point of interest behind this funding amount is not the number itself, but Noise’s astonishing decision—to pivot towards Base ecosystem development and officially leave MegaETH. This move has sparked heated discussion within the community and prompted industry reflection: Is the MegaETH ecosystem lacking attractiveness, or has Noise found a better growth path?

Paradigm leads $7.1 million investment, can Noise break through via attention trading?

As a New York-based startup team, Noise has gained capital favor again within just half a year. This round of funding was led by renowned investment firm Paradigm, with co-investors including Figment Capital, Anagram, GSR, JPEG Trading, and KaitoAI. Angel investors such as Jordi Hays, Dan Romero, and Kain Warwick also participated.

Paradigm’s involvement should have been the highlight of this funding. As a top investor in the crypto ecosystem, Paradigm’s participation often signals recognition of a project’s foresight and market potential. The funds will mainly be used to accelerate trading infrastructure development and promote mainnet launch.

Noise’s positioning is unique—it is a trend trading platform focused on relevance, aiming to capture current hot topics and figures online. Users can establish long and short positions on trends, brands, and ideas just like trading stocks. The prices generated are not just numbers but serve as objective standards for measuring cultural relevance.

The platform’s operational logic is based on the fusion of two signals—data and trading. Noise aggregates activity data from X to calculate transparent attention indices for each trend; when users invest real money, they are effectively voting with their capital, optimizing the quality of information that drives prices. Ultimately, it creates a market that combines objective data performance with subjective trader beliefs.

For users, Noise offers a new tool for quantifying trends. Brand managers can hedge attention risks from marketing spend; fashion brands can discover emerging talents through ranking changes; investors can express beliefs about which AI labs are gaining the most cultural momentum. Essentially, Noise turns vague popularity into clear tradable assets.

In a market where predictive markets are booming, platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have demonstrated that binary questions can support significant economic activity. But Noise takes a different approach—it does not focus on “yes or no” questions on specific dates but tracks real-time evolution of relevance, providing answers to “what is the current hotness” and “where is this hotness heading.” This differentiated positioning makes Noise an important supplement to predictive markets.

Data from the testnet phase adds confidence to Noise’s prospects. Since launching the beta version in May last year, 1,300 users contributed trading volume across 14 markets, demonstrating remarkable stickiness. Three months later, the retention rate of active users in the first month remained at 62%, with an average session length of 17 minutes—these indicators indirectly prove the genuine market demand for attention trading models.

From star projects to ecosystem departure, a warning sign for MegaETH’s loss

However, the real focus behind the funding is Noise’s choice. According to plans, Noise will launch its mainnet on Base in the coming months instead of remaining within the MegaETH ecosystem. This strategic shift has sparked considerable controversy within the community.

It is well known that Noise was a key incubated project under MegaETH’s accelerator Megamafia and a star within the ecosystem. But at “graduation,” Noise chose to leave, an act seen by many as a betrayal. Facing the risk of restarting on a new chain, Noise’s decision appears aggressive. MegaETH’s official account even unfollowed Noise’s founder on the day the funding was announced.

But some interpret this differently. The essence of attention economy is a traffic business. Compared to MegaETH, which is technically hardcore but still early in ecosystem development, Base—backed by a large user base and deep liquidity—may provide Noise with a more stable launch environment. Under this logic, Noise’s pivot is not a betrayal but a rational strategic choice.

In fact, this is not MegaETH’s first experience with core projects leaving. In mid-2025, DEX project GTE announced a $15 million Series A led by Paradigm, raising over $25 million in total. This was initially seen as a positive sign of MegaETH’s rising ecosystem, but just two months later, GTE announced a “breakup,” issuing a cryptic statement: “GTE has grown up and now wants to leave Mega Mafia.” Subsequently, the project planned to launch an independent mainnet—shocking the market, as GTE’s testnet had attracted over a million users within a few months.

Another stablecoin project, Cap, followed a similar path. It completed a $11 million funding round with investments from Franklin Templeton and Triton Capital, among others. Although not fully leaving MegaETH, it adopted a dual-chain strategy—prioritizing Ethereum and MegaETH to run in parallel—industry insiders interpret this as a lack of confidence in MegaETH’s native ecosystem liquidity.

The successive departure of core projects presents a severe challenge to MegaETH’s ecosystem retention during its early stage. These events show that even high-quality projects incubated under careful nurturing can struggle to maintain long-term loyalty.

The dilemma of incubation capability versus ecosystem retention

On the other hand, this wave of personnel changes also demonstrates MegaETH’s strength—it proves its incubation system’s effectiveness by producing projects recognized by top-tier investors like Paradigm.

But strong incubation ability does not necessarily mean strong ecosystem stickiness. MegaETH’s real dilemma is: how to retain projects within its ecosystem after they mature, using sufficient user base, liquidity, and technical infrastructure. Currently, many projects choose to “graduate and move away,” exposing MegaETH’s shortcomings in traffic and liquidity depth.

For the rapidly evolving Ethereum ecosystem, MegaETH’s story is not unique. Balancing innovation incubation and talent retention will become a core challenge for many emerging ecosystems. The continued involvement of investors like Paradigm reflects their openness to new ideas and also indicates that future capital will become more pragmatic—the ultimate resource flow will be determined by market liquidity and user base, the two most critical and ruthless indicators.