On November 13, MEGA — the organization formerly known as the MegaETH Foundation — cut roughly 20% of its workforce, just three days after committing $30 million to the development of new products. The layoffs affected personnel who built the company's Ethereum layer-2 blockchain (a network built atop Ethereum to process transactions off the main chain), its wallet, and the surrounding ecosystem. MEGA is now preparing to launch its AI inference marketplace in December as part of a broader expansion push.

Who left, and who stayed

Co-founder Shuyao Kong said the job cuts were the outcome of several months of restructuring. Some of those departing were among the earliest contributors to MegaETH. The company's founders, its first group of employees, and members of the core engineering team remain in place. MEGA has not disclosed its total headcount, leaving the absolute number of cuts unclear.

On November 10, the foundation rebranded as MEGA in order to develop new products in parallel with its blockchain. That raises the question of whether a leaner team can keep the MegaETH network running while simultaneously shipping new releases.

A $30 million bet on 'Purified Intelligence'

The expansion beyond the blockchain will be funded with $30 million drawn from MEGA's existing treasury rather than a new fundraising round. The MegaETH team previously raised more than $80 million through venture investments, an NFT sale, and token sales. The company's largest planned venture is an AI inference marketplace scheduled to arrive in December.

Inference is the act of generating answers with the help of a trained AI model. According to MEGA's whitepaper, developers often avoid cheaper service providers because they cannot be certain the advertised models are what they claim, or how their data is protected. MEGA has branded its answer to this problem 'Purified Intelligence' — a solution intended to make services from different providers easier to trust and evaluate.

The marketplace will be built on the MegaETH blockchain, and network upgrades aimed at faster transaction finality — the point at which a transaction becomes irreversible — are already planned. MEGA has not disclosed the names of its suppliers or the models involved, so the commercial benefits remain unknown.

Why job cuts alone prove nothing about AI

Layoffs may free up money, but they do not prove that AI investments pay off. In a Gartner survey of 350 executives at large companies, roughly 80% of organizations testing or using autonomous technologies reported layoffs — and those cuts were just as common among businesses with strong returns as among those with weaker results.

A slowdown in hiring across the cryptocurrency sector has complicated the picture further. According to a recent analysis by Tiger Research, job advertisements in the industry declined by almost 80% in January 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier.

In May, Coinbase revealed it would cut 14% of its workforce, citing market conditions and the introduction of AI. FICO likewise said it would reduce 15% of its staff and incur $27 million in costs related to the move, as noted in its SEC filing. Neither example provides evidence that AI adoption produced savings sufficient to justify such cuts.

Can a smaller provider actually compete?

MEGA hopes its marketplace will help smaller AI providers compete. But research shows that more inference suppliers are already entering the market as prices fall, and the OECD warns that access to computing power remains concentrated. MEGA must therefore demonstrate what its verification system offers beyond services that already compare providers.

The MegaETH blockchain faces challenges of its own. The value locked in its decentralized-finance applications stood near $9.8 million on November 13, down from a peak above $245 million. The MEGA token traded near $0.045, well below its April high of roughly $0.209. These figures do not directly measure demand for AI inference, but they add pressure on the company to make the new venture work.

The December launch will provide the first real test. Will developers pay to use MEGA's marketplace? Can the company attract reliable suppliers? And what role will the MEGA token play in the new business?