What Is REAL? Conor McGregor’s staking-enabled memecoin explained Conor McGregor, also known as “No
What Is REAL? Conor McGregor’s staking-enabled memecoin explained
Conor McGregor, also known as “Notorious,” is an Irish mixed martial artist born in Dublin on July 14, 1988. He is renowned for his achievements in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he became the first fighter to simultaneously hold titles in two weight classes — featherweight and lightweight.
Beyond his fighting career, McGregor ventured into entrepreneurship, in 2018 launching his whiskey brand, Proper No. Twelve, named after his Dublin roots.
He leveraged his UFC fame to market the triple-distilled blend. In 2021, McGregor sold a majority stake to Proximo Spirits for an estimated $600 million, while retaining a significant role.
In April 2025, McGregor ventured into the crypto market by introducing a memecoin named “REAL.” Promising to change the crypto world, the digital token was launched through a sealed-bid auction to prevent interference from bots and snipers.
Developed in collaboration with the Real World Gaming (RWG) decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), the REAL memecoin offers holders staking rewards and voting rights within its ecosystem.
What happened during REAL memecoin fundraising?
With the REAL memecoin, McGregor aimed to make a big impact in the crypto world. However, things didn’t go as planned.
McGregor partnered with RWG, a decentralized autonomous organization, to raise funds for the project with a minimum goal of $1,008,000. But during the 28-hour presale, the DAO collected $392,315 in USDC (USDC) from 668 contributors, only 39% of its target.
RWG acknowledged that the auction failed to hit the minimum raise, stating that they would fully refund all the bids. McGregor himself endorsed the announcement.
For the fundraising, the REAL token was sold through a sealed-bid auction on Axis Finance. Users privately submitted bids specifying the quantity and price they desired, and tokens were allocated to the highest bidders at a single clearing price.
After deliberating where they went wrong, RWG is now looking to relaunch the fundraising. The team hasn’t yet provided a date for the relaunch.
McGregor has remained outspoken, characteristically announcing or endorsing project updates with his signature line, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is REAL!” The team plans to reshape the token’s purpose and possibly modify its fundraising approach for a more successful relaunch.
Did you know? Memecoins often rise in value due to community hype and viral trends, not technical innovation. While they lack strong fundamentals, social media buzz and celebrity endorsements can drive massive short-term gains, making them popular among high-risk, high-reward investors.
Reasons for REAL memecoin’s fundraising failure
RWG’s attempt to launch the REAL memecoin faced multiple challenges, leading to the DAO’s failure to meet fundraising goals.
Several factors contributed to this outcome:
- Market timing: The launch coincided with a downturn in the cryptocurrency market. Major cryptocurrencies, including Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL), faced sharp declines. Only Bitcoin (BTC) was an exception, as investors viewed it as a value holder. Memecoins faced almost a 60% decline after Dec. 24, except GHIBLI. Such a gloomy environment wasn’t conducive for the launch of yet another memecoin.
- Economic conditions: The world economy is going through a phase of reconstruction due to the Trump administration’s reorganization of tariffs. This resulted in a US stock crash of about $5 trillion, more than the total market cap in crypto. (Though the crash happened after the fundraising failure, the story was in the making). The tariffs led to uncertainty in the world economic system, which also impacted the crypto market. Recession fears and substantial losses in US equities made investors more cautious.
- Scams surrounding memecoins: In 2024, over $500 million was lost to memecoin rug pulls and scams, as reported by Merkle Science, fostering significant distrust toward memecoins. One instance involved hackers compromising Kylian Mbappe’s X account to promote a fraudulent memecoin that reached a $460 million market cap before a rug pull. Similarly, Wiz Khalifa’s 35.7 million X followers were targeted with a fake WIZ token that briefly hit a $3.4 million market cap before collapsing. This decline in investor confidence likely affected the REAL token’s reception. Nansen Research’s Nicolai Sondergaard noted that experienced traders were quickly taking profits.
- Misinterpretation of the token’s objective: Despite McGregor’s assertions that REAL was a legitimate project with real-world applications, many perceived it as another celebrity-endorsed memecoin. This misunderstanding may have…
cointelegraph.com