Space Responds to Presale Controversy Over $SPACE Soft Cap and Refunds

Background: What Is Space?

Space is a leveraged prediction market built on Solana. It lets users speculate on real-world and crypto-native events such as elections, sports outcomes, and asset prices using leverage of up to 10x. The platform emphasizes non-custodial access, no KYC, fast settlement, and low fees enabled by Solana’s high-throughput infrastructure.

The $SPACE token underpins the ecosystem, supporting governance, staking incentives, and liquidity programs. The project positions itself as the first prediction market to combine leverage and DeFi primitives at scale.

Space Responds to Presale Controversy Over the $2.5M Soft Cap

At the center of the backlash is Space’s presale funding target. Critics accused the project of advertising a $2.5 million cap while later accepting significantly more capital, calling the move misleading.

In its response, Space clarified that the $2.5 million figure was a soft cap, intended to represent the minimum funding required to operate sustainably. The team stated that treating it as a hard cap would have left the project with only a short development runway, increasing execution risk.

According to Space, demand exceeded expectations, and oversubscription was permitted to ensure long-term viability. Of the more than $20 million contributed, the team said it allocated $14 million to the project and earmarked approximately $6 million for refunds.

Refund Process and Claims of Unequal Treatment

Refund handling quickly became the most contentious issue. Some contributors claimed smaller investors were denied refunds while larger wallets received them, fueling accusations of favoritism.

Space acknowledged delays in processing refunds but denied any preferential treatment. The team said it handled refunds based on eligibility, timing, and user requests, not wallet size. Space said it executed the address changes at the request of contributors, not insiders.

While defending the process, Space acknowledged that it could have communicated refund details more clearly and confirmed that it scheduled refunds for January 21.

Tokenomics Defense and Rejection of Scam Allegations

In response to scam accusations, Space said it designed its tokenomics to prioritize long-term sustainability over short-term price action. The team denied any insider dumping or hidden allocations, stating that it structured the $SPACE distribution to support governance participation, liquidity, and ecosystem growth.

The project framed much of the backlash as post-presale volatility-driven FUD, urging the community to “zoom out” and evaluate the platform based on delivery rather than launch-week controversy. The team also held a live Space audio session to address questions directly from the community.

Src: @intodotspace

Why the Space Presale Controversy Matters

The dispute highlights structural weaknesses in how teams communicate and execute DeFi presales. Ambiguous soft caps, discretionary refund policies, and reliance on off-chain coordination create opportunities for misunderstanding when teams fail to define expectations precisely.

As leveraged prediction markets grow in relevance, Space’s handling of this controversy may influence how future projects structure disclosures, manage oversubscription, and enforce refund logic. Whether Space can fully restore trust will depend on execution and transparency in the weeks following its TGE.