A digital collectible car platform just pulled off one of the more eye-catching fundraises on Solana this year. Rip Cars, which bills itself as the world’s first Hot Wheels-inspired gacha platform on the blockchain, attracted $20.9M in commitments through its ICO on MetaDAOProject, a Solana-native launchpad that governs fundraising through decision markets rather than the usual token-holder voting.
To put the oversubscription in perspective: the project set a minimum raise target of $250K. It closed with commitments of $20.9M. That is not a rounding error.
What MetaDAO actually does differently
The platform uses a governance model built on futarchy, which is a fancy word for decision markets. In English: instead of token holders voting on proposals with their wallets, the system uses prediction-market-style mechanisms to determine which proposals are likely to produce good outcomes. Governance follows the market signal rather than a popularity contest.
MetaDAO also structures its raises around what it calls “ownership coins,” where early investors acquire genuine stakes in projects through a transparent and refundable process. The goal is to legally connect token ownership with actual business outcomes, not just speculative upside.
The platform completed a $2.2M private funding round in August 2024 and has now executed 14 launches in total. Cumulative fundraising across those projects has surpassed $44M, with the Rip Cars ICO representing a substantial portion of that total.
Gacha mechanics meet blockchain collectibles
Rip Cars is essentially betting that two things with proven mass-market appeal, randomized collectible mechanics and die-cast car nostalgia, translate well to a blockchain-native format.
Gacha is a collectible model borrowed from Japanese vending machines and popularized by mobile games like Pokémon GO and countless others. You pay a set amount, you receive a randomized item. Sometimes it is common, sometimes it is rare, and the uncertainty is precisely the point.
The fundraising event launched around July 20, 2026, with a live period running approximately three days at a fully diluted valuation of $645K.
What this means for investors and the Solana ecosystem
The $20.9M commitment figure deserves some scrutiny before drawing sweeping conclusions. Commitments are not the same as capital settled. Refundable raise structures, which MetaDAO uses, mean that not every dollar committed necessarily converts to a completed investment.
The Rip Cars raise also tests an interesting allocation mechanism. MetaDAO is experimenting with something called an Ownership Score for determining how allocations are distributed among participants.