Metamask "might" issue coin, Linea TGE is still undecided?

After the delay in issuing coins on Linea, the founder began to leak information continuously?

Written by: Pzai, Foresight News

On May 14, Dan Finlay, co-founder of MetaMask, stated in a podcast that the wallet team is still considering launching a native token for the wallet. Although there does not seem to be a clear plan at the moment, Finlay pointed out that "there are more kinds of coin issuance that are safe under the looser regulatory framework of the Trump administration."

As early as 2021, MetaMask engineer Erik Marks proposed the idea of issuing tokens, and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin also hinted at the market's attention on tokens in a tweet that year. However, now the market is more focused on the TGE process of Linea, a Layer 2 product under ConsenSys. On March 8, Linea announced that it would not issue coins in the first quarter of 2025, raising questions in the community about the progress of the TGE. In such a public opinion environment, will ConsenSys find a new way to surprise the vast number of wallet users?

In the wallet war, is issuing coins a means of differentiated competition?

As the leading wallet in the Ethereum ecosystem, although the issuance of tokens has been repeatedly postponed, MetaMask, with its massive scale of 3 million monthly active users, keeps the anticipation of token airdrops as the focus of the community's attention. From the trading data, the trading volume of Metamask Swap is relatively small today, with a single-day trading amount of less than 100 million USD for a long time, significantly lower than the trading volume on Solana chain platforms. As market liquidity trends have significantly favored the Solana chain, Metamask is gradually losing its share in the trading market, dropping from 77% at the end of 2022 to less than 3% now. Although MetaMask actively connects developers to introduce external wallets like Solana through tools like Snap, it still cannot compete with the rapid growth of trading products from various exchange wallets.

In today's market environment, MetaMask may achieve decentralized operations through DAO governance tokens, deeply binding token functions with cross-chain interactions and even cashback on transaction fees, strengthening its positioning as a multi-chain hub. This "delayed gratification" strategy, while slightly reminiscent of PUA, encourages the community to continuously use the Swap function and participate in cross-chain transactions in hopes of increasing airdrop weight. With major exchanges actively expanding their wallet product lines and gathering on-chain liquidity, issuing coins can also be seen as an opportunity for differentiated competition, aiming to recover liquidity while enhancing user activity.

Additionally, as the market environment warms up, the easing of the regulatory environment also provides a compliant basis for issuing coins. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued ConsenSys last June, accusing MetaMask of being an unregistered securities broker, allegedly providing illegal securities offerings and trading services. However, on February 28, the SEC proposed to withdraw its enforcement action against ConsenSys and MetaMask.

Under the procrastination of Linea, the expectation for wallet issue coin is meager?

As a Layer 2 project on Ethereum under ConsenSys, Linea has attracted users to participate in ecological tasks with its "backed by MetaMask" star halo since its mainnet launch in 2023, promising to airdrop tokens to early supporters through the LXP (Linea Experience Points) rewards system. However, the token generation event (TGE) originally scheduled for the first quarter of 2025 has been postponed to the second quarter. The official reasons given include "token economics need improvement" and "legal processes are complex," but the community generally believes these statements lack substantial evidence and question that the essence is an excuse for "endless delays." Moreover, due to other Layer 2 projects (such as Starknet and zkSync) successfully issuing coins during the same period, Linea's lagging progress has resulted in users' funds being locked in the ecosystem, significantly increasing opportunity costs.

From the data perspective, assets on the Linea chain are continuously flowing to other ecosystems, with the scale of cross-chain assets now less than 300 million USD. Linea product head Declan Fox stated that TGE will occur after the market shifts from bear to bull. Given the current market trends, we can anticipate Linea's TGE as a public chain project with a pre-market trading FDV stabilizing around 2-3 billion USD.