Decoding the 200x Oversubscription of Limitless: The Trio of Base, Kaito, and GambleFi

Written by: Oliver, Mars Finance

In the world of cryptocurrency, numbers often hold more power than words. On October 5, 2025, a number shocked the entire market: $200,963,519. This was the total amount subscribed during the community pre-sale of Limitless, a prediction market based on the Base ecosystem. Even more astonishing is that the target funding amount for this pre-sale was only $1 million, which means the oversubscription multiple reached an astonishing 200 times.

This is not just a simple successful fundraising, but a landmark event. It acts like a prism, clearly refracting the convergence of the three strongest narrative forces in the current crypto market: the rapid rise of the Base ecosystem backed by Coinbase, the evolution of prediction markets towards high-frequency "GambleFi," and a new community-driven project issuance paradigm led by platforms like Kaito AI.

Behind this capital frenzy lies either a signal of the birth of a revolutionary product, a textbook-level marketing and issuance strategy, or merely another bubble under the halo of the Base ecosystem. This article will delve into every aspect of this phenomenon, from its ingenious issuance mechanism to the technical foundation of the product itself, as well as the grand ecosystem it inhabits, in an attempt to provide an answer that transcends the noise for this defining moment in the market.

A pre-sale marketing event worth 200 million USD

Analyzing the core of this incident, the key lies in understanding that the astonishing $201 million is not the actual income of the project party, but the total amount of capital invested by market intentions. The actual financing cap (Hard Cap) for Limitless's public sale is strictly set at $1 million, selling 20 million LMTS tokens at a price of $0.05 per token, corresponding to a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $75 million.

The stark contrast between this extremely low hard cap and the high market enthusiasm is a brilliant example of "demand engineering." Mechanically, it ensures an astronomical oversubscription multiple. This figure, as high as 200 times, itself becomes the most viral marketing headline, effortlessly shaping a market consensus of "projects are extremely hot and tickets are hard to come by." The FOMO (fear of missing out) emotions generated by scarcity inject tremendous energy into the presale, like fuel.

The deeper layout lies in the fact that it has perfectly warmed up for the secondary market listing of the tokens. The "rejected capital" of over $199 million, which failed to be successfully subscribed, has already become a powerful and eager potential purchasing force, poised to surge into the market after the Token Generation Event (TGE). Therefore, it can be concluded that the primary goal of this presale is not to raise funds, but rather to orchestrate a marketing campaign that far exceeds this, cleverly transforming a round of financing into a textbook-level viral marketing campaign.

Kaito's "Reputation Economy": Innovation in Issuance Paradigms

Another key player in this issuance is the Kaito Capital Launchpad, which serves as the hosting platform. Its core design philosophy aims to address the pain points in the traditional IDO model, where the market is dominated by a few "whales" with large capital and automated scripts. Kaito has abandoned the "first come, first served" or purely lottery-based model, opting instead for a reputation-based elite distribution algorithm.

The algorithm relies on Kaito's powerful artificial intelligence social data analysis capabilities to evaluate the value of users from multiple dimensions. Its core is a plan called "Yap-to-Earn," where users earn "Yap Points" by posting high-quality crypto-related content on the X (formerly Twitter) platform and tagging @KaitoAI. Kaito's AI system assesses content quality, filters out spam, and rewards genuinely influential opinions, thus creating a quantifiable metric known as "Proof-of-Influence." These points are combined with the user's on-chain activities, historical project participation data, etc., to collectively determine their subscription eligibility and amount on the Launchpad.

Kaito's model is essentially the "financialization of reputation." It effectively transforms the project's community into its marketing and distribution force before its launch. To qualify for subscriptions, users must build their reputation; to build reputation, they must make positive contributions to the ecosystem's discourse. This process filters out those with high conviction who are long-term participants rather than short-term speculators, forming a strong positive feedback loop. The project side gains extensive market education and promotion, while community members receive tangible economic returns. A brand new paradigm for project issuance is thus born: the most valuable asset of a project is no longer just the funds raised, but the highly engaged loyal community established prior to issuance.

Limitless Product Analysis: Born for Speed and Speculation

Clearing the fog surrounding the issuance, does the Limitless project itself have solid support? The core of Limitless is a decentralized social prediction protocol built on the Base chain, with its most distinctive feature being its focus on high-frequency, short-cycle markets. It covers multiple areas such as cryptocurrencies, stocks, and commodities, offering prediction events with hourly or daily settlements, which clearly positions it as the on-chain equivalent of 0DTE (zero-day-to-expiration options) in traditional finance, making it extremely attractive to speculators seeking quick capital turnover and high-frequency trading.

In terms of technical implementation, Limitless does not adopt the automated market maker (AMM) model commonly found in DeFi protocols, but instead chooses the central limit order book (CLOB) model. This design provides traders with a familiar experience similar to centralized exchanges, avoiding the high slippage and impermanent loss issues that may arise in high-volatility markets with the AMM model. At the same time, it allows users to freely create markets using natural language and ensures accurate adjudication of market outcomes through the Pyth Network oracle.

The project is led by a team with an outstanding background, core members include CJ Hetherington (CEO), Roman Mogylnyi (COO), Dima Horshkov (CPO), and Rev Miller. The founding team's resume spans multiple well-known Web3 and tech projects: CEO CJ Hetherington has previously worked at

Gitcoin has rich experience in on-chain community building; COO Roman Mogylnyi is the viral AI face-swapping application.

The co-founder of Reface, which once topped the global app store charts, has demonstrated its strong capability in building and expanding consumer-facing social products; while CPO Dima Horshkov has experience in decentralized oracle networks.

Work experience at Witnet, with deep expertise in protocol layer.

In terms of institutional support, Limitless has raised a total of $7 million through two rounds of financing, with a star-studded list of investors.

Limitless Financing History

Coinbase Ventures' investment highlights the strategic alignment of the project with the Base ecosystem; 1confirmation is known for its early and high-conviction investment style; and the addition of Maelstrom, founded by BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, signifies that the project has gained recognition from one of the most influential trading thought leaders in the industry.

The gravitational field and competitive landscape of Base

Choosing to build on Base is a crucial strategic decision for Limitless. Base, as a Layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, has its greatest advantage not only in its high TPS and low fees but also in the powerful "Coinbase effect" behind it – seamlessly connecting millions of users from one of the world's largest compliant exchanges and a huge fiat liquidity gateway.

Since its launch in August 2023, Base's on-chain activity has shown explosive growth. According to data from L2Beat, Base's daily transaction processing volume has consistently been significantly higher than its main competitors, Arbitrum and Optimism. Recent data shows that Base's average daily UOPS (Units of Operation Per Second) is approximately 122.18, while Arbitrum and Optimism are at 32.65 and 14.43, respectively. In terms of profitability, Base also leads by a wide margin, demonstrating stronger network effects and a sustainable economic model.

Layer-2 Competition Metrics Comparison: Base vs. Arbitrum vs. Optimism (2025 Q3 )

In the prediction market sector, Limitless's most direct competitor is the industry leader Polymarket. However, there are significant differences in their positioning. Polymarket focuses on high-risk political, current events, and other long-cycle events, leaning more towards "Information Finance" (InfoFi). In contrast, Limitless has opened up a more fast-paced speculative sub-market of "Entertainment Finance" (GambleFi) through its high-frequency, short-cycle financial markets.

Feature by Feature Showdown: Limitless vs. Polymarket

This difference in positioning has also brought about different regulatory challenges. Polymarket has faced scrutiny from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) due to the nature of its event contracts. Meanwhile, Limitless focuses on short-term fluctuations in asset prices, making its product form closer to

Unregistered binary options or swap contracts, such products clearly fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, which may bring greater uncertainty to their future compliance path.

Conclusion: The beginning of the new script for the project.

The amazing presale of Limitless is no coincidence; it is the inevitable result of a series of carefully planned strategic synergies: a product (Limitless) tailored for a speculative audience, launched on an ecosystem (Base) with a massive user base and strong brand endorsement, through an innovative platform (Kaito) that capitalizes on community reputation.

This event provides a whole new script for Web3 project issuance. It reveals that in 2025 and beyond, the most successful project issuances may no longer focus solely on capital fundraising, but rather prioritize screening and building a highly engaged and loyal community before the issuance. In this new script, the token sale itself plays more of a final marketing event, where the community enthusiasm and market attention it ignites are far more valuable than the funds raised.

For Limitless, the challenge has just begun. Whether it can find a compliant path through the maze of regulations, and how to effectively transform the initial speculative frenzy into sustained user growth and long-term value for the platform, will be key to determining its ultimate success or failure. However, regardless of the outcome, its collaboration with Kaito has already demonstrated an inspiring future for the latecomers in the crypto world.