Public sale buyers haven’t received their tokens yet, but the price has already plummeted 97%: Space crashes at launch
- Core Insight: The Solana-based leveraged prediction market project Space (token: SPC) saw its market cap collapse by over 97% from a peak of $83 million shortly after trading began on April 29. Public sale participants were unable to trade due to the project team's failure to distribute tokens on time, leading to accusations of a "soft rug pull."
- Key Elements:
- SPC's market cap hit $83 million at the open on launch day before plummeting to $2.13 million—a drop of over 97%. As of April 30, the market cap stood at approximately $5.5 million.
- Public sale participants reported that trading on exchanges commenced before their tokens were distributed, preventing them from selling during the price crash and effectively trapping them at peak prices.
- With a total supply of 1 billion SPC tokens, 51% was allocated to the community pool. However, the post-launch sell-off was primarily driven by insiders, market makers, or other groups who had received tokens early.
- Space had previously completed a $3 million seed round, positioning itself as a 10x leverage prediction market on Solana, with 50% of protocol revenue allocated to token buybacks and burns.
- The public sale, originally planned to raise $2.5 million, was oversubscribed to $20 million—sparking controversy over the lack of advance disclosure of the oversubscription and differential treatment of refunds favoring large investors.
- The Token Generation Event (TGE) was delayed from January 2026 to late April, with opaque updates throughout the period. The community also questioned the project's predecessor as a nearly defunct gaming project, UFO Gaming, and noted the absence of any live product.
Original author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
On April 29, Space (token: SPC), a leveraged prediction market project on Solana, officially launched trading, simultaneously listing on five exchanges: Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, BitMart, and Bitpanda. Its market cap peaked at approximately $83 million at the open before entering a unilateral decline, hitting a low of $2.13 million the same day, a drop of over 97%.
As of April 30, SPC's market cap sits at around $5.5 million, still down more than 93% from its opening peak.
Concurrent with the crash, numerous participants in the public sale reported on X that the project team had not yet distributed tokens to public sale buyers, while exchange trading had already begun, causing prices to plummet before they could receive their coins. This effectively locked public sale participants in at high prices, watching the price fall from $0.08 to $0.005 without any tokens to trade.
One user directly accused the Space project of "absconding with $15 million," as the FDV crashed from $70 million to below $8 million. Another user wrote: "Another day another scam... Down 90% in the first hour. Presale buyers couldn't even claim."
Who was selling en masse at the open? If public sale buyers hadn't received their tokens, the only entities able to sell on exchanges were insiders, market makers, or other groups who obtained tokens early. Their selling directly triggered the price crash. Ordinary public sale participants, without receiving their tokens, effectively became passive holders with no exit channel.
What is Space?
Space positions itself as the first prediction market platform on Solana to support 10x leverage. Users can engage in YES/NO leveraged trading on events related to cryptocurrency, politics, sports, etc. The platform promises 0% maker fees, with 50% of protocol revenue used to buy back and burn SPC tokens. In December 2025, Space announced the completion of a $3 million seed funding round, with participation from Morningstar Ventures and Arctic Digital. Additionally, Space received investment from the echo community, subsequently launching a public sale.
Regarding token allocation, SPC has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with 51% allocated to the community pool.
Oversubscribed 8x; Refund Disputes Started in January
Launched on December 18, 2025, Space announced a token public sale accepting USDC, USDT, and SOL. Initially, it planned to sell $2.5 million worth of tokens at a fixed FDV of $50 million. After reaching this target, sales would continue, but the FDV would increase linearly up to $99 million. At the conclusion of the public sale, each participant would purchase tokens at a calculated uniform price.
On January 21, Space outlined the public sale distribution process, stating it had raised over $20 million in total. Of this, $14 million had been allocated, and $6 million would be returned to participants on January 21. For participants who were allocated (or partially allocated), tokens would be distributed at a clearing price of $0.069 (equivalent to a $69 million FDV). Partial refunds would be sent back to designated wallet addresses on January 21.
However, the project subsequently faced community质疑 (suspicion/scrutiny) over issues like fundraising scale and the team's historical background. Several community members indicated the team's predecessor was seemingly the gaming project UFO Gaming, whose token price had crashed nearly 95% from its all-time high.
The community accused Space of pivoting to the prediction market space after its old project failed to gain traction, without releasing any public or test version yet, instead prioritizing the preparation of Hyperliquid perpetual contract code, suggesting an intention to cash out. Furthermore, the community expressed dissatisfaction that the project increased the public offering amount after oversubscription without prior notice. They also pointed out that some large refund addresses were newly created addresses with no transaction history.
According to the official explanation, the project decided to refund over $7.3 million in excess funds. It explained that address changes for some refunds were due to participants' security concerns. The raised capital would be primarily used for the leverage pool, initial liquidity, security audits, team expansion, and CEX listings. Addressing the fundraising controversy, Space explained that the previously mentioned $2.5 million was merely a soft cap, not a hard cap. Expanding the fundraising scale was intended to support leverage market liquidity and multi-year R&D to ensure the project's long-term competitiveness.
But community doubts persisted, focusing on whether the possibility of oversubscription was not adequately disclosed beforehand, and whether large holders and retail investors were treated differently during the refund process. Some users considered this a "soft rug."
Four Months of Waiting Ended in a Crash
According to the earliest official information, the SPC token generation event (TGE) was initially expected around January 2026, but was actually postponed to late April. This over three-month wait eroded community patience. From the January oversubscription controversy to the April TGE, buyers experienced a full chain of opaque refunds, repeated schedule delays, and insufficient information updates. When the token started trading on April 29, many public sale buyers found they hadn't received their coins at all. Months of accumulated distrust erupted simultaneously, resonating with selling pressure at the open, causing the price to spiral out of control within hours.
As of press time, the project team has not released an official statement regarding the April 29 price crash and the token distribution failure.
