Conor McGregor token creator refunds bidders after failed offering

Conor McGregor-backed token fails to meet $1 million minimum goal set by developers.

Investors who bid for the REAL (REAL) token promoted by former UFC champion Conor McGregor will receive a full refund after the project failed to raise more than the $1 million minimum requirement.

“We have to be realistic. We did not meet the minimum bid,” Real World Gaming, the developer of the Real (REAL) token, said in an April 6 X post, adding that “all bids will be refunded in full.”

“This is not the end,” said RWG.

The team raised just $392,315 in USDC in a 28-hour presale on April 5 and 6, less than half of the minimum requirement and about 11% of the $3.6 million goal via a sealed auction.

The public sale of 60 million REAL tokens (3% of REAL’s total supply of 2 billion) initially targeted a fully diluted value of $120 million, with a sealed auction starting price of $0.06 per token.

McGregor, a former UFC fighter turned entrepreneur and Irish political candidate, initially claimed that his token was more legitimate than other celebrity-endorsed tokens, which have often attracted controversy:

“This is not some celebrity-endorsed bullshit token, this is a true game-changer that will improve the crypto ecosystem and make a real difference in the world,” McGregor said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph.

Was REAL’s launch badly timed?

The REAL token was launched against the backdrop of a sharp market decline, as Bitcoin fell and U.S. stocks lost about $6.6 trillion on April 3 and 4, the largest two-day loss ever, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans continued to stoke recession fears.

The memecoin has also been cooling since the official Trump memecoin was launched on January 18, 2025. The Libra (LIBRA) token scandal involving Argentinian President Javier Milei in late February also exacerbated the decline.

The memecoin market, once worth $100 billion, has now fallen below $44 billion, down 13% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.