Written by: Pzai, Foresight News
On May 14, MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay stated in a podcast that the wallet team is still considering launching a native token. Although there are currently no clear plans, Finlay noted that under a more lenient Trump administration regulatory framework, "more types of token issuance would be safe".
As early as 2021, MetaMask engineer Erik Marks proposed the idea of token issuance, and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin also tweeted hints that sparked market attention. However, now the market is more focused on the Token Generation Event (TGE) process of ConsenSys's Layer 2 product Linea. On March 8, Linea announced that it would not issue tokens in the first quarter of 2025, raising community doubts about the TGE progress. In such a public opinion environment, will ConsenSys take an unexpected approach to surprise wallet users?
In the Wallet War, Is Token Issuance a Differentiation Strategy?
As the top wallet in the Ethereum ecosystem, despite repeated delays in token issuance, MetaMask's massive scale of 3 million monthly active users has kept the token airdrop expectation a community focus. From trading data, MetaMask Swap's trading volume is currently relatively small, with daily trading volume not exceeding $100 million for a long time, and far lower than Solana chain platform transactions. With market liquidity significantly tilting towards the Solana chain, MetaMask is gradually losing market share, from 77% at the end of 2022 to less than 3% now. Although MetaMask is actively integrating with developers through tools like Snap to introduce cross-chain wallets such as Solana, it still cannot match the rapid growth of exchange wallets in trading products.
In the current market environment, MetaMask might achieve decentralized operations through a DAO governance token and deeply bind token functions with cross-chain interactions or even cashback fees, strengthening its positioning as a multi-chain hub. This "delayed gratification" strategy, though slightly manipulative, keeps the community continuously using Swap functions and participating in cross-chain transactions, hoping to increase airdrop weight. As major exchanges actively expand wallet product lines and on-chain liquidity aggregates, token issuance could be an opportunity for differentiated competition, aiming to reclaim liquidity while enhancing user activity.
Additionally, as the market environment warms and regulatory constraints loosen, this provides a compliant basis for token issuance. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued ConsenSys last June, accusing MetaMask of being an unregistered securities broker and allegedly illegally offering securities offerings and trading services, but on February 28, the SEC proposed to withdraw the enforcement lawsuit against ConsenSys and MetaMask.
Under Linea's Delay Syndrome, Wallet Token Expectations Are Slim?
As ConsenSys's Ethereum Layer 2 project, Linea has attracted users to participate in ecosystem tasks since its mainnet launch in 2023, leveraging the "backed by MetaMask" star halo, and promised to airdrop tokens to early supporters through the Linea Experience Points (LXP) system. However, the originally scheduled Token Generation Event (TGE) in the first quarter of 2025 was postponed to the second quarter, with official reasons including "token economics need improvement" and "complex legal processes". The community generally believes these statements lack substantial evidence and suspect they are excuses for "infinite delay". Moreover, as other Layer 2 projects (such as Starknet and zkSync) have successfully issued tokens during the same period, Linea's delayed progress has caused user funds to be locked in the ecosystem, dramatically increasing opportunity costs.
From a data perspective, Linea's chain assets are continuously flowing to other ecosystems, with cross-chain asset scale now less than $300 million. Linea product head Declan Fox stated that TGE will occur after the market transitions from bear to bull. Under current market trends, for blockchain projects with pre-market trading FDV stabilizing around $2-3 billion, we can anticipate Linea's TGE.
