Meteoras MET in the Crosshairs: What Is a Realistic Valuation at Token Launch?

With the upcoming launch of Meteora’s MET token, investors and analysts face the key question: What value is truly justified for this new DEX token? The answer lies not only in the protocol’s fundamentals but also in market psychology and valuation multiples of comparable projects. This article explores what a realistic fair value for MET might be.

Market Context: Volatility Shapes the Environment

The current market shows mixed signals. While the launchpad sector has demonstrated strength in recent trading days and Bitcoin’s price has rebounded from lows, institutional demand for crypto products remains subdued. ETF inflows into Bitcoin and Ethereum products are consistently negative, indicating cautious sentiment among larger investors. SOL ETFs are an exception, with positive inflows.

In this environment, MET will face its first test. The token is starting with 48% of the total supply in circulation—a relatively high share compared to other prominent Solana tokens. Initial liquidity is secured through a dynamic AMM pool with a starting price of $0.50, where pool fees are initially high and decrease over time. This approach intentionally differs from other launch strategies and could influence early investors.

Meteora’s Business Fundamentals: From Mercurial to Meteora

Founded in 2023 by the Jupiter team, Meteora is the leading DEX aggregator in the Solana ecosystem. The background: its predecessor project, Mercurial Finance, was discontinued because significant portions of the MER token were linked to FTX/Alameda. With the restart and the MET token, the team chose a clean slate.

The protocol has quickly established itself as a hub for high-volume memecoins. Over the past 30 days, Meteora generated over $8.8 million in revenue across all liquidity pools. Notably, over 90% of this revenue comes from memecoin pools, which are typically configured with higher fee rates than standard token or stablecoin pools. Even during periods of lower on-chain activity, Meteora still records weekly revenues around $1.5 million.

Vertical integration with Jupiter and new launchpad partnerships (Moonshot, Believe, BAGS, Jup Studio) provide Meteora with diversified access channels. Recent launchpad activities have generated weekly additional income between $200,000 and $800,000. These diversified revenue streams set Meteora apart from DEXs that rely solely on their primary trading volume.

The Valuation Question: Comparable Projects as a Guide

The main challenge in valuing MET is that DEXs—especially on Solana—lack significant structural defenses. This was evident when PumpSwap diverted substantial volume from Raydium by redirecting tokens to its own AMM.

To determine a fair value for MET, it’s helpful to compare it with established DEXs like Raydium and Orca. Both projects show different valuation patterns over time, measured in Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratios. Orca consistently trades around 6x annualized revenue. Raydium showed similar patterns until September but now trades at higher multiples of about 10x, as revenues have declined.

Over the year 2025, the average P/S ratio of these two established competitors was around 9x—a plausible benchmark for new DEX tokens.

The Fair Value for MET: From Optimistic to Pessimistic

Based on Meteora’s annualized revenues (roughly $75 million to $115 million, depending on the period considered), a realistic valuation range for MET can be estimated.

Applying a P/S ratio between 6x and 10x—the historical range for comparable projects—the fair valuation of MET after token launch could be:

• Conservative scenario (6x P/S): approximately $4.5 billion
• Moderate scenario (8x P/S): approximately $6 to $9 billion
• Optimistic scenario (10x P/S): approximately $11 billion

A valuation above $10 billion would position MET as expensive compared to established DEXs. Valuations exceeding $20 billion, without demonstrable improvements in profit margins or significant market share gains, would be considered a clear overvaluation.

Conclusion: The Realistic Range for MET’s Fair Value

The fair value for MET at launch is realistically between $4.5 billion and $11 billion. This range is based on proven comparison metrics and reflects both the project’s strengths (established revenue streams, strategic partnerships) and risks (competitive pressure, lack of moat, higher dependence on memecoin volume).

Investors should use this valuation framework as a compass to assess whether MET is fairly valued at launch or over-/underpriced. Any valuation significantly above this spectrum may indicate overly optimistic market expectations—prompting a cautious re-evaluation of the position.