The Top Things Investors Need to Know Before Buying Crypto Tokens

Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome to Unchained. Your no hype resource for all things crypto. >> [music] >> I'm your host Laura Shin. Thanks for joining this live stream. Before we get started, a quick reminder, nothing you hear in [music] Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes only and my guest and I may hold assets discussed on the show. For more disclosures, visit unchainedcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, the first cybersecurity company backed by OpenAI. As AI makes deep fakes and synthetic identities easier than ever, Adaptive helps companies test and strengthen their defenses. Learn more at adaptivesecurity.com.

Quick note before we get into today's episode. Bits and Pieces now has its dedicated [music] feed. We're spinning off from the Unchained feed and moving to a new podcast and YouTube channel. So, if you want to keep up with our weekly live streams and macro meets crypto breakdowns, [music] make sure to subscribe to Bits and Pieces directly. We won't publish there until March, but subscribe today so you can be ready for launch. Be sure to subscribe to the new feed at unchainedcrypto.com/bitsandpieces. Today's topic is tokens versus equity in DAOs. Here to discuss are Ryan Yi, founder at OnChain Group, and Felipe [music] Jesus. Felipe Montealegre, co-founder and chief investment officer at Theia.

Welcome Ryan and Felipe. >> Thank you for having me, Laura. >> So, we're going to be discussing a topic that just keeps coming up again and again in crypto nowadays and that's this tension between tokens and equity. But before we dive into the details around the Across Token Protocol, which is or the Across Token, which is the most recent news that concerns this topic, we're just going to have each of you describe your background and how you came to spend a lot of time thinking about this issue. >> [music] >> Ryan, why don't we start with you? >> Sure, thanks Laura. Um, yeah, my name is Ryan. My background's primarily as a crypto VC [music] and so uh seeing a lot of these investment structures both from an equity perspective, but also a

conversion into token as well as token directly. Um and then most recently um kind of began to talk to a lot of founders kind of navigating these complex situations and relation to their business strategy. And so um yeah, we've set up a company basically uh targeted towards providing financial services uh helping these founders navigate these issues. >> Felipe? >> Great. Yeah, so my background is right now I'm chief investment officer at at Theia. Theia is a liquid token fund focused on long-term buy and hold um for for liquid tokens. So we focus primarily on projects with revenue um earning fundamentals, and we try to benefit from their growth in the same

way that that uh equity market participants would benefit from the growth of of businesses. Um this is very different than than the way that most token trading was done at really on our in our fund's life. Where I think a lot of people were used to trading narrative tokens, you know, hoping a token would catch a narrative go up in price and then they could sell and exit. We're do we're investing more in the way that people invest um for the long-term, right? You you buy a company, you trust a team, you plan out strategy, and then you benefit from business growth and revenue growth. Um in the process of doing that and building our fund, we realized that you know, one of the major issues to this type of investing was the token the token problem. Which is that tokens did not confer sufficient rights on on um

on for token holders. So there's a lot of ways that tokens can be leaky buckets. Um you know, thought it's easy for teams to sell or move away, but one of the most kind of um pervasive problems was the to was the equity token equity problem. Where previous investors who had equity could siphon value away from tokens. And that's why we think about this problem all the time, because it really impacts our long-term returns and our short-term returns. We've had issues with it multiple times despite being very careful, and we know that every other liquid fund out there has had the same problems come up again and again.

And it's it's frankly been a a existential issue for the for the liquid token space. >> All right, so let's dive into the Across token issue. Um last week the Risk Labs Foundation, which is behind Across protocol, made waves when it proposed that the DAO-governed protocol become a company. Uh for the transition, they proposed retiring the ACX tokens and offering an equity exchange to token holders. Their motivation was this, quote, "As Across deepens our work with institutional and enterprise partners, the token and DAO structure has materially impacted our ability to close partnerships and integrations. Transitioning to a traditional legal entity would meaningfully improve our ability to

enter enforceable contracts, structure revenue agreements, and deliver more value to Across stakeholders." So, as I mentioned earlier, this is just the most recent example of various entities in crypto finding that DAOs are kind of cumbersome from a business perspective, and they're trying to change these structures to become more nimble. Uh so, this um Across proposal right now is just a temperature check, but I was so curious to hear your reaction to this idea, and either one of you can go first. >> Yeah, I mean, sure. Um I think at a high level where we probably should begin is yeah, what was maybe the premise of

tokens to begin with kind of early in this industry. Um I think we have enough data points now where you know, I think the user and the stakeholder really being aligned as a token holder is is quite important. Um I think there are There's teams that execute this very well. Um so I think Hyperliquid is a great example of this where their main user is a trader and therefore they're also probably their largest token holder as well. Um and I think in sort of the space of, you know, interoperability and bridging, um kind of becoming a lot more clearer around who your customer is in that regard and whether or not they have the capacity or even desire to hold tokens.

Um I think that maybe is like a valid line of argument in some capacity, but I think there's actually a larger story here if I'm being honest. So, you know, if we zoom out um and look at sort of the team that is um you know, building the Across Protocol project, um you know, people may forgotten, but they're also the developers of an Oracle project called UMA or UMA. Uh and so if you think about it, this is one team that is really building two products at the same time, right? So, they're building out this Oracle uh product, UMA, and then they're also building out this bridging product, which is Across. Uh and theoretically UMA powers a lot of the Across infrastructure. Um but I think as just taking sort of like the early-stage sort

of VC bucket hat on, it is actually kind of hard for a team to focus on two products at the same time. And I think the the sort of if you, you know, everything in retrospect, but I think one mistake is thinking that you can have basically a token for each product as well. Right? And so, you know, when you launch a token, yes, it's like great cuz you get liquidity and you're able to bootstrap your community, but at the same time it's like the the amount of cost that goes into it is the equivalent of like as a startup team you're effectively going public as a company. Right? So, managing the token, managing market makers, managing listings, managing liquidity, like this is a huge time suck, especially if you're early-stage founder that's still trying to find product market fit, right? And so, I think um you know, if I just looked at

the stats or the fundamentals of the actual products involved, uh you know, Across was one of the leading bridge providers and I think to this day still, you know, has a lot of usage. But in terms of the relation to their core product, which is UMA, um Across at one point was 50% of all of UMA's activity and now it's less than 10%, right? And I think the Across uh product itself has also lost around 80% of its TVL since its peak. So uh and then if you actually zoom out, the majority of UMA's activity is actually as an oracle for the Polymarket prediction markets. Right? And so, I think if you're a team that's navigating these things and you're realizing, "Hey, like at one point, you know, one of

these products actually had more mind share and more growth potential in our mind. Now going forward, that actually that sort of matrix in terms of the ROI of having a token for each of those products in that respective capacity can also change over time as well." Right? And so, the way I view this is that it's effectively like a tender offer to the token community. They're saying, "Hey, um if you want to transition into this equity structure, um you know, you have a chance to do that as a token holder. These are your rights. Uh if you don't want to take that deal, that's fine. You can go and, you know, take this cash offer from the treasury." Uh and effectively, it's up to the token holder on what they want to do. Uh but ultimately, what the Across project gets is they get the token

holders that are aligned in their success uh at when they convert into this equity structure. And effectively, they can shed all the activities as well as related cost that would come with managing an entire token community for another product within their portfolio. Uh so, that's how I would view it um sort of in not in with an isolation but within the broader sort of product strategy thinking behind the team. >> Felipe? >> Yeah, I agree with all that. Um I think Across brings about a couple interesting questions. One is a question of equity versus token. And we've heard from a lot of teams that having an outstanding token hurts their ability to do B2B sales and their ability to deal with large institutions.

And that's just a reality in the market today. Now, those things can change over time, right? But if you if having a token is a problem for your core function and your core go-to-market sales problem, it's it's a liability, right? And then the question is, how do you solve that? And we've had some teams solve that by just discontinuing their token, which I believe is um it's quite unethical to do that to people who have who have savings in a token, but the way that Across did it is to me from the outside, cuz I'm not close to that project, seems like a very fair way to do the to do the to do the the migration. Because you're offering everybody the ability to participate in the equity stack, and you know that you're offering it at good

terms because the price shot up after the proposal. And we're still many days later trading above the proposal price. And that's kind of you know, it's one of the core I think signals to look at as people do transitions over the next few months is did the token go up or down relative to where it was trading before. And you know, people will always kind of talk about the proposal and and try to spin a narrative, but if the token goes down, people are clearly getting less than they thought they had before. And if it goes up, it then it it it it um it resolves uncertainty and maybe gives people even more than they thought they had before. So, I think that was quite nice to see. Now, that's it's not always a hard rule because the question is um there's some ways to game that, which

I can go into, but but that's it's it's a overall it's a pretty good rule. I think something that Ryan mentioned that's important, too, is you know, this idea of having multiple tokens doesn't make any sense at all. You don't see it in equity markets. There's like there's like a handful of exceptions. One is Musk that people always point to, and even he's consolidating operations now, it seems like. Um but like most businesses have significant revenue generation from products that were launched after the initial IPO. Right, the obvious examples are Amazon makes half of its earnings from AWS, which was launched launched 6 years after IPO. Um or sorry, 8 years after IPO. Uh Apple makes most of its revenue from the iPhone, which was launched

decades after IPO. Like people invest in businesses in large part because they believe management teams will continue to ship products. And having in the idea that you'll have a a token for each product doesn't make any sense for investors because you lose all of that optionality. Um and it also doesn't make sense from an incentive point of view. Because you always have the risk that you'll the management team will focus all their energy and use the treasury that they raised from your, you know, money as an investor on some new product with the new token. So, I'm glad every time I see a a business like a cross consolidate from multiple tokens to to one or even just one equity. Uh we're we're always happy to see that because it it again, it doesn't make sense from a strategy or incentive point of view.

Um this is Go ahead. Sorry. I was going to say it's the same with token and equity. You know, they had token and equity, that's the reality. There are many reasons why that happened. The first the most common one is that people thought in a prior regime that that won't come back that tokens were kind of free capital. And every token you launched was kind of uh you know, a free 50 or 100 million dollars market cap that you can count on. But the markets just no longer accept that. So, now that we've gone through that process of of kind of rejecting that, you know, nonsensical idea, people are consolidating to one instrument, token or equity. And you know, we don't have an opinion. You can have token or equity. Just just just do it in a way that's fair and and um and disclose to all participants. So,

nobody is um is fooled into making a into squandering their savings. >> Yeah, so to go back to your earlier point about the token price, um so it basically doubled in price pretty much right away um from about 3 and 1/2 cents to 7 cents. Um, and then it dropped down to 4.37 cents, which is the price that they put in the proposal um you know, for those who choose not to participate in the token-to-equity exchange, um they will be able to sell their ACX for exactly that price. So, it makes sense that that would be the new floor for it.

Um, so one of the you know, reasons that they cited for why they were going to or why they were making this proposal is because they said quote, "At current ACX valuations, we believe the Across Protocol is significantly undervalued." And I wondered if you agreed with that and if you also thought that turning into a private company would give it a more appropriate valuation or if you just generally have a way to, you know, kind of do a quick back-of-the-napkin math on um coming up with such valuations.

>> I don't have a view on whether it's undervalued or overvalued. Typically, we don't have a view unless we've done um you know, many weeks of diligence and have access to all financial information. So, I don't have it here. >> Ryan, did you >> Yeah, I mean, that's the same. I think like the what you should maybe look at is like what were the inputs that maybe the team was thinking through as part of that decision. So, you know, if you look at you know, the the token allocation, uh effectively, you know, 20% sort of belongs to the team and foundation.

Um, 25% belongs to the treasury, which technically is, you know, within the rights of the token holders. And then 55% are owned by investors in the public, which are all fully vested. So, you know, if you think about the sort of math here, um yeah, my my view is I'm not exactly sure how much of the tokens are going to convert into equity, but just to make maybe like napkin math, right? Uh let's just assume that uh the 55% of all investors, um they're the ones that actually have rights to basically the uh $21 million at that token valuation. Right? So, my view there is really they're taking the amount of balance sheet that they have in treasury. Um they're probably thinking, "Hey, like to actually

capitalize this business in the most like base case scenario, we need X amount of money. And the remainder amount of money that we're allowed to give the token holders based on this uh base case for us is around like this $20 million number." So, in my view, that's probably the math that they were doing. Um so, one of those inputs being the amount of uh dollars that they have in the treasury. And then the other was also simply just like the the price of the token right now. Right? And so, you know, if you look at before the announcement and basically the buyout price, the buyout price was higher. And so, I think as a token holder, um you could probably make the argument that like, "Hey, it's not like they're, you know, giving us a worse valuation here.

They're technically giving us a better valuation." Um but I think the more broader question though is that um how do we kind of think about the new entity valuation based on the conversion? Right? So, if we believe most of the team and the foundation and the treasury is going to be moving over, um then effectively that is, in my view, and some like not the full percentage of people take the money into the conversion, then effectively it's like an anti-dilution into that company. And so, those people that do get value into the company effectively are able to own more of it, uh which is like, you know, a good sort of argument that goes against the other fact, which is now that, you know, this vehicle is illiquid and so, therefore like there should be some discount to that as well.

>> Okay, yeah, the that price, the um 4.375 cents or whatever, um that was 25% higher than the last um 30 days of trading. So, um I guess like the the other Oh, go Did Felipe were a question? >> One really think quick thing. I don't think this is the case with the cross. I don't know about I don't think it is. Um but everything in crypto gets gained over enough time. The big per perverse incentive here that people have is to drop price as they before making an announcement. Because basically the market's going to be is going to be happy as increases um the price and then deal will be perceived as fair. So, companies could

hide financials, roll in more costs, maybe make statements that make people question the the validity of the token. Um it's very easy to get your price down as management team of company. Uh it's very easy. So, basically every company that's going to do this equity to um token equity conversion has a bit of a short on their own token because they can they can announce conversion at a premium based on the price of the day before. And I think it's something to watch out for here because again, you know, it's perverse incentives have a way of being um really taken to the limit in this industry.

>> Okay. So, >> Let me I actually want to add a comment to that which is true which is um you know, the one of the What one thing that's kind of interesting maybe in this sort of token equity conversion is that um there is no details about the equity entity. And I don't think that's out of malice. I think that's actually more for regulatory reasons because you can't really do a public solicitation of a private investment opportunity. And so, as a result, you know, I think they have done enough analysis with like their lawyers on like what they can and can't say.

Um and they're a bit publicly what's what's said in the governance forum is that you know, the team shares will move one-to-one. And I think what they're basically saying is that like there's not going to be some like crazy dilution. But, you know, the fact is fact of the matter is that like you don't know until you actually read the equity opportunity. And so, um the reason why I think they put this out as a temp check actually is they wanted people to know that they were doing this and you basically had to signal intent on whether you wanted to see the equity opportunity or not. What I would guess then is that they would self-certify from an accredited investor status. So then they can actually look at the equity opportunity.

So this is one of those things where like in a perfect world you would have both sets of investment opportunities in front of you as a token holder, whether that's like the cash buyout or whether that's the new equity opportunity, but I know probably for regulatory reasons they can't actually show the equity opportunity until these token holders like self-certify that they have enough like across tokens and you know, they actually want to see what's happening here. So you know, it's like you can you can assume like super perverse incentives. You can also assume it from like a regulatory side, but you know, it's it's kind of this thing where like I think we have to kind of just wait and see on like what the final deal is on the other side of it.

>> Yeah, and the last thing I'll say is we won't know if it's fairly valued or undervalued from the market price you know, once this is in full swing because people who are KYC'd to concede and concede numbers will bid this above the 4331 if it is cheap because it's going to be a cheaper way to buy the equity for for VC funds and liquid funds. So right now the market's signaling that it's not undervalued. Um signaling people kind of prefer the cash option by and large, but you know, we should give it some time for the information flow.

>> Yeah, um that bit that Ryan said about how they're probably trying to figure out kind of like um how many people they might get. Um I that makes sense because in the post they have a little you know, less than 1 minute survey um that you you know, they just want to kind of like gauge interest. Um and then for the audience who didn't I these details I just want to call these out cuz these are um you know, just some of the details that Ryan and Felipe are referencing. Um so, you can exchange your tokens for equity exposure in this Across code they're calling it.

Or um if you have less than 5 million ACX tokens, then I think you you can like get equity in some kind of special purpose vehicle. Um and and then, you know, if you have more than 5 million, you can have direct equity in the C-corp. And then um and then that last other option that I mentioned was you can just get bought out uh for USDC. So, um so, one other thing that I wanted to talk about and this goes back to the Uma bit. Um so, it's kind of funny cuz Hart Lambur who um is I don't know his exact title, but he's basically the the head. Um he posted on X uh talking about how the focus for Across going forward

was going to be agentic payments. And um he basically said Across quote has two more yet to be announced deals that make moving money free for users. Cuz cuz he talked about how with stablecoins he felt like one of the problems was that the user had to pay the fees and that the issuer, because they're making all the interest, should be paying the fees for users. Um and he talked about how he thinks this will be like, you know, just kind of the main way that stablecoins are are handled from a business perspective in 2026. Um and he said that, you know, securing securing these deal securing these deals requires contracts and out of protocol payments, which are functions that are not well suited for DAOs. So, um you

know, I this I mean, this is something we keep hearing over and over again. This is not the first DAO um founder to talk about this, but I was just so curious cuz like, you know, Stani also mentioned this in a recent essay. So, what kind of activity do you think does make sense for a DAO to handle versus a a centralized entity. >> So, there's a lot loaded onto the word DAO. Um that's that's the the thing that makes it hard to discuss. A political entity with multiple stakeholders that debate in public I think is a very hard sell for business trying to compete in the global financial space.

Um if you're trying to compete with a global fintech company led by people who are really high-quality and you're having to get everything through a forum post, it's going to be really hard to compete. >> And and you just mean that from like a competitive kind of privacy strategy perspective right? >> Privacy strategy, but more importantly, um the ability to move fast and have leadership. Right? Um it's you know, DAOs are good at at imposing controls. They're not good at moving quickly. And that's what we've seen the number of DAOs and the influence of DAOs decline every year since they were a big topic in in 2020.

Um or since 2021. Now, you know, most most private companies are led by by leaders who push the company forward. That's been the the that's been the evolutionary outcome of US capital markets and global capital markets is is companies are run by leaders. Now there's there's one important nuance to that, which is in public markets where most value is created, these leaders have controls. And that's the SEC reporting, um you know, 10-Ks, 8-Ks, quarterly earnings. There there is accountability to your to your shareholders in public markets. And you need that as well, because what we've seen in this space and in every time where

accountability has been loose is that a leader who has the ability to enrich themselves at the benefit of of of shareholders and no controls will will will do so more often than not. And that's been the history of this industry for the past 5 years as well. So, I think when you think about what DAOs did well or they did not do well. What they did not do well was the CEO role. You know, when when when a CEO is having to negotiate with the DAO to make decisions that are core to their job, I don't think DAOs have done that well at all. Um and Stani said that in in his post, and that makes sense. Um and this it's been the same thing for everybody else who's had this situation come up, right? You Uh how can negotiate a B2B contract through a DAO in the case

of Aave? Now, where DAOs have been really good is in accountability. And obviously, Aave has been a great project despite the the DAO inefficiency. And a big part of that has been the accountability to Aave token holders and Aave stakeholders. Now, I think there are better ways to handle accountability than than DAOs as they are conceived right now. But we absolutely need some way to have um leaders of companies be accountable to token holders or to equity holders, depending on on what path they pursue. Now, MetaDAO, as the word DAO in it, is um is a company that's that's that's kind of balancing that line where CEOs are allowed to lead their company, but anything that's a board-level decision,

where you have to replace a CEO, liquidate a company, go through an acquisition, is decided by by token holders through, you know, a novel governance mechanism. I think we'll see more experiments like that where the the the circle where the kind of radius of the CEO is left intact, but everything that has to do with with token holder rights and accountability is is tackled through some DAO-type mechanism. >> Yeah, I think um I generally agree with with Filipe there. I think the um the question really is kind of around what is the the like what what exactly do they mean

by the transaction? Or like, what do they mean by like deals in that capacity? And really, it's like two things. One is like, you're either trying to raise money from a new investor, or you're trying to find an efficient way to spend resources. And I think generally speaking, in terms of efficiently spending resources, um the way that I've seen that work out in DAOs is you either need to ask um for every time you want to basically get new resources, uh or you basically ask for a lot of money up front so that you could do things on your own and like not have to deal with the DAO to like spend resources.

Um what I've generally seen is that yes, like you can go in the direction of trying to ask for like some lump sum up front so that you could spend it cuz that gets rid of the efficiency problem in some capacity, but uh you can only judge uh in retrospect how efficient that use of capital capital was. And I think if you ask a lot of token holders, they actually feel like, oh, we feel actually these teams are not good purveyors of capital. They did not spend this capital in a like a wise and efficient way. And I think on top of that, um or or just the worst-case scenario is there's just no like audit at all. Right? So, in some ways like, you know, in the same way you know, startups raise money and like they spend money on like hiring and

all that kind of stuff and they're free to do that. Uh ultimately, it is up to the discretion of like the CEO in that perspective. I think my view is actually like token startups are basically the same. Like, once they raise token uh and they raise cash, like they can kind of do anything with it that they want. It's just a matter of like tapping into the token reserves to like ask for more money and capital. Um so, I think my view here, at least with Across, is I don't know how they're thinking about this agentic space and, you know, whether you know, they are thinking through an investment or or like a cost structure.

But, my sense is that in either case, right? Um if you're a VC that is willing to back a company in the agentic side, chances are you probably want to back an equity company and don't want to touch a token. So, they probably have some interest in investor investors from that side of the world um and they want to bring in those investors in like a future round. And then I think secondly speaking um they probably do want to move quickly with um you know, sort of sharing what would typically be like an equity share with like some company. But in order to do that, they would probably need to go through a DAO process. And then in doing so, basically like need to ask the DAO to like you know, approve some money and you know, reveal like what their product strategy is and who

the partner is. And the partners probably don't want all that information out there as well. And so, you know, my view here is like like I said, it it depends on the product and it depends on the category. Um and you know, maybe the across product at the end of the day is still a bridge, but now they're dealing with different stakeholders who are coming from the AI agentic side. And those people may may not actually want to prefer like touching anything token related. And so, to that degree like I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the team. But it kind of goes back to this idea of like um who are the stakeholders you're actually trying to bring along for like your next phase of growth. And sometimes that may not actually be like crypto native people.

That might be like other parts of the stakeholder base. >> All right, so in a moment we're going to talk about some of the other um kind of developments around this tension between token and equity tokens and equity. But first a quick word from the sponsors who make the show possible. >> This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, the first cybersecurity company backed by OpenAI. As AI becomes more capable, attackers no longer need to break into your systems. They just need a convincing imitation of someone you trust. That could mean a deep faked voice on a call, a synthetic co-worker on Zoom, or phishing emails written by AI that are nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

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meets crypto breakdowns, make sure you're following Bits N' Bips directly. We [music] won't start publishing until March, but getting set up now means you'll be ready on day one. You can find [music] the new Bits N' Bips channels at unchainedcrypto.com/bitsnbips. You can also find us by searching Bits N' Bips on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Back to my conversation with Ryan and Felipe. So, we brought up Aave at some point. Um that was the most recent debate over kind of uh labs versus DAO um structures. And that, you know, unfortunately resulted in kind of like a splintering of the DAO. Uh some of the key groups like BGD and Aave Chan left.

Um you know, so the initial proposal was Aave Labs uh you know, suggested having all of its revenue sent to the Aave DAO treasury and then pr- like requested that the foundation um or sorry, the DAO basically grant them $25 million worth of stablecoins plus 75,000 Aave tokens for work. Um they also thought the foundation should own the Aave trademark and the IP. But generally, like what did you think of the like before we get into all the drama and everything that happened, like what did you just think of that proposal?

>> So, that was that was a temp check. Um, we we were I think the temp check and the proposal that's coming proposal on the same when the same idea are both important because Aave has been facing this issue of token versus equity for a few months now in in the liquid markets. You know, Aave is one of the highest quality businesses on the in the on-chain space. Most people have a view of a price where they would want to buy this asset. Um, you know, it has that rare quality where it's been able to maintain market share over four or five years now, which is really rare and hard to find in this industry. And it's in one of the most profitable segments, you know, the borrow lend segment that has the most room for growth as this industry goes

mainstream. So, people want to own it. I think it's the problem's always been this token equity issue. And this temp check and the upcoming proposal solve that issue. That is by far the most important thing for us as investors is that issue solved. There will be no Aave Labs equity or Avara equity that competes with with the token. There'll be no second token. All revenues created by the team will go to the Aave token. That, again, that was an existential issue for for the token. Um, then there's a matter of the details of the proposal and who's left and who's left and who's and who has left and who's stays behind with with the Aave product project. I think there's a lot more that can be debated there.

Um, you know, the question is are they getting too much capital? Um, should there have been a way to to make this work with Marc Zeller or the BDG team? Obviously, that would have been better for everyone if there was a path there. You know, that's very much subject to the specifics of each personality or something you can debate when when it comes to the amount of capital being given. But the overall point of the proposal, which was to unify equity and token under one ticker, was extremely important. And I hope it can get done with as little collateral damage as possible.

>> Yeah, you know, I I I kind of zoom out and and think about like the history of of these projects and also from like, you know, taking more of a product-oriented view of kind of how we got here. So, you know, basically, Aave started off as like a token only, right? It was Ethlend actually back in the day and then they they converted to Aave. And I think for a while it worked because I think the core team worked together under the same umbrella. And even though some of the core team members effectively left, they were all still under the same sort of Aave coalition, right? So, whether they were represented under like a different entity name within the DAO, effectively they were kind of all working in

some sense of like coordination to execution, right? I think where things started to kind of show up was a couple of years ago when the Avara entity was created. And we noticed kind of, you know, the Aave sort of product suite tried to go beyond just the Aave protocol, right? So, you have things like a wallet product, you had the What was it? The the social product Lens, I believe it was called. And then, you know, [snorts] they they had all these other things they were working on. And I think in that time it was fine until they actually started to face real competition from new upstarts, specifically Morpho.

And so, I think in that regard they're like, "Oh, wait, this is the crown jewel. This is the crown, you know, the main products. We actually need to focus up here." And I think what came out of it was a realization of a couple things. One is, "Hey, like, let's not focus on any of these products anymore. Let's just focus on the Aave product." And so, I believe, you know, the the Lens product was sold to another company and they've kind of like shuttered off a lot of these other things as well. But I think it was another realization of like okay, like if we were to ship sort of a new product and innovate and do all those things, do we still have the right business structure to tackle those things, right? And I think the the short answer was basically them

realizing that now. Like we we actually need to kind of centralize control under one one sort of brand. And so I think the question was then like okay, who should own that? Um how how should we reward these people? And then how do we sort of fund this business sustainably? So I do think for all they um a large part of their risk factor is actually sort of in the rearview mirror now. But now it is up to, you know, Stani and the rest of the stewards who are sort of driving the protocol forward uh to actually see whether they can sort of compete um and you know, continue to innovate. And uh it does feel like things have just gotten a lot more competitive in that space as well.

>> But did you think that their proposal was a good one? That it makes sense for them to do it that way? >> Well, I think the net outcome is basically you have one person driving the business and the product going forward. Uh and then the second is like what is basically the economic relationship between, you know, the DAO and and that team. Some people think it's like too expensive. Other people think it's fairly funded. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. Uh but I think the core goal is like, you know, if you're a business wanting to integrate one of these protocols, you don't want every BD decision to be like, you know, you might talk to one person, but like okay, wait, I need to talk to like four or five other stakeholders who all work at different companies and like

get them on the phone and then like we can come back to you with a proposal. But purely just for like business separation reasons, it delays like doing a deal by like weeks, right? Whereas like if you're just dealing with like one counterparty, you know, one entity effectively, um it's just a lot easier to coordinate and like actually win those deals. And my sense is that now because of the like the next growth segment for that space is specifically dealing with enterprises and institutions. Right? So, you know, I was involved in in the Coinbase sort of DeFi mullet deal that that went out. And but ever since then, now there's so many of these deals coming out, right?

>> Yeah, you're talking about Morpho. >> Exactly. And I think like the counterparties that they're dealing with are definitely more within like the institutional world, sort of the more capital allocator world. And I think for those people, they need to have a lot more of like a a tighter sort of business rhythm. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And you can see that by I mean, Morpho's in the same business, right? And they went the exact same route where there's centralized control by the Morpho team. And then the Morpho token solved the equity token problem perfectly where they subsumed the the equity into a non-profit entity that has a mandate to support the token.

So, they locked themselves basically said, "We cannot pay out dividends or do buybacks for equity. Your investment is safe with us. There's no way for anybody here to make any money through token price appreciation >> [clears throat] >> and you know, eventually token distribute, you know, cash distribution as well, possibly. But the flip side of that is you have to trust the team. Right? We cannot take your value from you, but you have to trust us to, you know, have no revenue for however long it takes for us to compete, you have to trust us to negotiate deals privately and announce them when they're ready, you have to trust us to sell, you know, double digits percentage of the company to Coinbase in

Apollo if we think that's necessary, you have to trust us to to kind of steward this business. And that's a fine that's a totally fine trade to make. You know, as token holders, we were happy to make that trade if if we have the proper accountability and security. Which which Morpho does. And what you're seeing from Aave is them actually following Morpho into the same structure. Again, because the other structure just will you can I you know, I can I expect zero political like true dials to compete with FinTech global FinTech companies.

Zero. Um and if I'm wrong, I'll be wrong by one or two. And that's why you see companies like Ave, Morpho, and Uniswap moving this direction. And they would have moved in this direction sooner had it not been for the guy which is kind of the you know, the two original sins of the token problem are the zero interest rate policy because everything was valued at nonsensical valuations. People thought they could ship tokens with no revenue and Gensler which created this equity token split and all this nebulous language around these companies um for 4 years, right? So, Ave and Uniswap both companies that I think we criticized heavily in the last year for having token token equity problems have both

come around and unified their token and equity behind the token in both cases because they're no longer fighting with SEC. And they can do make the decision that makes the most sense for them as a business and for their investors. >> Yeah, I think that's really under appreciated. Um the the regulatory factor here. Um I mean, it's literally night and day, right? I think uh you you know, projects that I've spoken with sort of that were building under the previous administration, they literally had to do everything and create all these like things to basically seem like the issuer had no relationship to the token. And so, you know, at face value, it's basically oh, the teams actually don't

care about the token. But even if the teams do care about the token, they had no like their lawyers are basically telling them don't do this under any circumstance. I think under this new regime now, uh the general climate is just a lot better, but I I'm also basically seeing like you know, a lot of the legislation being passed and hopefully we'll see like clarity actually sort of um actually sort of uh crystallizes into law, hopefully. But, the idea is that I'm generally seeing founders be a lot more open uh in terms of their risk tolerance, in terms of speaking about their token more openly, and actually associating with their token in in a real way. And so, I think that's actually the primary driver as to why you're seeing all these kinds of like interesting transactions happening

uh that are involving tokens, right? Whether that is like the Across token buyout, whether that is sort of a restructuring of the Ave capacity, or whether that's like a Uniswap fee switch. Uh and I do think like a lot of the US companies especially, who were under this sort of equity versus token, I think they had that structure put on them uh through the sort of the VC fundraising sort of environment and apparatus that existed. And then they were effectively handicapped, whether they they couldn't really do one or the other. But, I think now that's basically been lifted, and so some teams are realizing, "Hey, like we should all fully go in on the token," which you've seen with like the Uniswap. And then you'll see some teams are thinking, "Hey, like actually given where we are in terms of like the stage that we need

to grow into and the stakeholder base and just the general crypto world seems more institutional, we actually need to go more towards equity." And so, some maybe are thinking about, "Hey, like let's, you know, basically buy out the token holders and bring them into our the equity regime." >> And you're seeing it across space. Now, we're talking about big deals here. But, these these transitions are happening at a small scale constantly. Um, you know, I can think of of five teams in a portfolio company that are either have done this already or are in in the process of of doing this transition. Um, one from this week is Derive, the options protocol. Um, you know, they've been around for five years. They've always been token holder friendly, but they published an official release talking about how the how the

token was at the center of their business. There was no competing equity. Everybody was paid in token, and basically representing their commitment to the token in in all circumstances. And you're seeing a lot more of these releases come out and they really do have weight. So, representations by teams like that um you know, they're they are made with the intention that people can use them in investment committee to make investment decisions. And it's not something you can say lightly. And the you know, during the conversation people were saying lawyers would advise the people against these these posts because because they do have teeth. They do have weight. Um and the same applies to disclosure protocols like the Blockworks token transparency protocol. You know, if you if you do a write-up in those 20

pages um and talk about your token and how you treat your token within your your business and whether your token is your this main source of value accrual, investors will look at that to make investment decisions and they can um bring that up either legally or directly in the future. So, it's these things are are, you know, I'm quite optimistic about the way this is this is moving in terms of people of tokens having true rights and having >> Yeah. Yeah, these are all great examples and great points. Um but let's talk about one that uh maybe didn't go down so well, which was the controversy around um Circle's acquisition of Axelar's development team developer team. And

that deal excluded the Axelar network, the foundation, the AXL token holders. Um I mean, there there was another team that was brought in to manage all of those, but I wondered, you know, what you thought about how that deal played out and if you had any thoughts on how you would have done it differently or if you thought, you know, that what they did made sense. >> Yeah, so uh let's just zoom out here for a second. Um this is not the first version of a deal like this where you basically have a labs equity entity and then you have, you know, basically the token.

Um most of these projects that were funded in this way, most VCs have exposure to both, right? So, they expose they invest into the equity and then they basically have some sort of convertible structure into owning the token as well. Um now, what usually ends up happening is that um the team, the IP uh usually sits in the equity entity, and then sort of the token balance sheet and all those things sit within sort of the token entity as well. So, you know, I think if you are somebody that is looking into acquiring um you know, a team or a product or anything like that, chances are there's probably going to be some sort of token structure involved. And you know, there have been M&A deals in the past that actually are were able to acquire the

equity entity without having to touch the token, right? And so, I believe Coinbase acquired a company called IronFish uh maybe like a year and a half ago uh to like focus on privacy. I believe they had a token. Um I believe they also had acquired um you know, a team called like Bread Wallet which had like a token BRD token. So, you know, Circle acquired Axelar. I wouldn't put pause that as like the only thing. It's like it's there's basically a string of these types of deals that have been done before. Um I think the reality though is that, you know, for a lot of these teams, I have yet to see an actual sort of big product or strategic acquisition. So, in other words, most of these were actually acquire hires. And so, in that capacity, the only thing that the acquirer

actually wants to touch is the talent. And the talent sits under the equity. Um and if you're a buyer, you're like, "Hey, like I can get the equity entity and I can get basically the team. Um but in order to do this, I actually can't be seen touching the token because as the acquirer, I do not want to face any liability from the token holders because, you know, they could get sued, for example, by some token holder out there that feels like, "Hey, like you guys just basically, you know, were able to take the main developers and managers of this protocol and like, you know, effectively no one's really working on this going forward." My view is is that I actually think this is kind of a vestige of the past because um that was under the regime of like, you know, you were completely separated from

the token as the equity entity and therefore like, you know, because you gave that language and you gave that expectation in some capacity, you can effectively still do you could have done that deal now. But I think that in current in the current regime, as Felipe and I have been talking about, token holder rights are basically the non-negotiable. This is like the main I think one of the main inputs that founders are really thinking through and going forward, I can't really I I'd be it would be strange and I think it actually would be a lot more negative ROI uh for a founder to basically try to repeat like what happened with the with the Circle Accelera deal, in my opinion.

>> Yeah. >> Um also, I think my view is that you know, the more that you actually tie sort of the value of the token to the business and the product and the protocol, um if you are actually the acquirer and wants to bring that in-house, now you can't just do the deal without the token cuz the token is actually the core piece of that equation. Um so, I do believe in this world actually where maybe one day these acquirers are going to think about, "Hey, like how do we bring this in-house?" You can't just like steal the main like, you know, builder or like uh the the employees. You actually need to deal with the token uh holders and that probably looks something actually similar to like effectively a tender offer like it was in Accelera except that's in like sort of an asset sale and

acquisition perspective. >> Yeah. Accelar is the better model, right? So, I'm not close to Accelar at all. Um I don't even know the team, honestly. Tensor had a similar acquisition with Coinbase. Um you know, we weren't on investors in that either, but basically, if you've promised anybody that the token will benefit from the business growth, you should do what Accelar did and do a tender offer where you're allowed to where token holders are allowed to convert to equity or And I think the Accelar signal is important for token founders. I think a lot of token founders feel trapped by the business very often. Um, trapped by the token.

Because they don't want to do anything unethical or kind of you know, tokens are held by individuals with savings, right? So, no most people don't want to abandon these people and and kind of do something that's will mark them forever as an unethical kind of scammer. Um, Across is a good is a good uh case study in what you can do, right? In giving people um the ability to KYC, get equity, put be part of the transaction. Tensor and Axelar, you know, I'm not close to Axelar, Tensor definitely is what you should not do. Right? Because you are essentially sending a token to zero, sending people's savings to zero, and if you had represented that the token was the the val you know, the value accrual mechanism for the for the business, you essentially lied to people, um had them

invest into into a into your token and had them lose their money. It's been in because of all the guardrails in the Gensler regime, it's hard for these early teams that are transitioning to to to be sued because usually they'll have no public language at all saying the token was the the main value accrual instrument. But, to the extent that you know, people have those representations, it you won't be able to do these deals going forward without having token holder lawsuits. >> All right. So, there's just one more specific example I want to touch on before we go to more general questions, which is um I saw that the exchange Backpack is going to um

go with this hybrid model where basically they offer equity to long-term stakers of their token. Um, and Armani Ferrante, the founder, wrote on X, quote, "As far as I'm aware, this is the first time a user has been able to earn the equity of a company by just using the product." I wondered what you thought of that idea. >> Um I don't have a strong view on the on the back of model.

Uh you know, generally I don't I don't like having a equity and token split, but here's a mechanism to convert one into the other. I would prefer them to have just one or the other, just equity or just token, but aside from that, no strong opinion. >> Yeah, I agree on that. I think my view is that they're trying to build optionality into the type of business that they want to build. Obviously, on one side they want to be, you know, this regulated exchange and I think having sort of a traditional capital structure that reflects that is sort of matches that strategy, but at the same time they're also trying to do like a retail go-to-market, which obviously I think the token direction kind of matches that. And so, my view there is they're kind of like trying to build optionality, but you know, based on the

conversation that we've been having, you know, during this hour, like our view is like ultimately like one person's going to lose, whether you're the token holder or the equity holder, and I think those things eventually need to merge into one capital structure. >> The The dual models don't trade well. I mean, look at pump.fun, right? It's one of the most profitable businesses in the industry. They have a ton of cash value. They are trying to pursue the dual equity token model um to pursue optionality, and they trade you know, they have like the lowest multiple of any business, you know, above like $10 million of revenue. And the reason why is because people don't trust that they will that they have a claim to the cash, and they don't trust that they will get the revenues indefinitely.

And without saying whether that's right or wrong, it's it's it's it's a legitimate concern from token holders. Um you know, pump would trade much better if it only had a token or if it only had equity, you know, um but let's say if it only had a token, it would trade much better if they just solved the token equity problem. And that's that's been the case for a lot of these businesses. The market is going to push them in one direction or the other. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that happened it in the backpack as well. >> Huh. Okay. Okay, so I I'm so curious what you guys think generally about DAOs. Um you know, Stani he wrote in this essay on X um he described trying to build with a DAO structure as quote fighting your own

organizational structure every single day. He said quote proposals that should take a day can often take weeks of forum posts, temperature checks, and multiple votes. Meanwhile, your competitors ships and positions themselves against the slow DAO. DAOs DAOs also become politicized very quickly and it's easy for voting to become about attention. Which yeah, that that's an interesting statement. Um participants take sides, lean toward the loudest voices, and form political alliances to get their own proposals passed later. Just as large companies end up with managers instead of founders, DAOs end up with politicians.

Yeah, all of this was a super interesting to me. Um and then he said quote it can often feel like we took the worst parts of corporate bureaucracy and remove the parts that create accountability in the name of decentralization. So, what do you think of his remarks there? And um I I kind of asked this earlier, but still like like do generally like what do you think is the future of DAOs? >> I think that's all true, everything he said. Um just from you know, seeing DAOs from the outside participating. It's it is it's a bureaucratic process where where having a political instinct can be a an asset to people, right? So, you want to get um retweets, you want to use them in

inflammatory language, all the tools that I mean it's it's a it's a it's a government, right? It's all the tools we see people using government will will work in DAOs as well. Um I think the future of DAOs is a system like Meta DAO where the market decides. That's um in in the Meta DAO structure, you basically create uh two two tokens based on the two decisions that are that are at hand. And then the the the business opts in for the one that trades higher.

So, in the case of something like you know, the the Ave proposals we're talking about now, Stani would have a proposal, Zaro would have a proposal, we would have the market would trade Ave under both circumstances. And then we could we could opt in for the one that that makes the token trade higher. Basically, this is is is instantiating the token as the objective function for for the business, which is important that you know, US capital markets did that when the Dodge versus Ford decision was made over 100 years ago, and it was a pivotal moment for US capital markets.

We need to do that in internet capital markets as well, but more importantly, it makes it so that investors decide the outcome of businesses based on skin in the game trading decisions. So, if if I think that Stani's proposal is better for Ave, I can buy more Ave, and that market that that signal can be reflected in the market price and push the market towards making that decision. And if I think that Stani's proposal is worse, I can sell Ave, I can short Ave under those circumstances. Um and then you don't have politicians, you don't have kind of you know, this political lobbying. What you have is is investor communications, where you're kind of pitching your strategy to investors, and sophisticated pools of

capital can ultimately end up deciding where the where the you know, what decisions are made based on what benefits long-term holders the most. >> And then would would you say that like the labs entity could vote or I mean, sorry, could trade in that or like they >> Absolutely. Absolutely, because they would be um they would First of all, they have the most information about the proposal. So, it's an important source of information. But also, trading means you are buying more contingent on the proposals happening. So, if you if you want to single say that say Ave Labs wanted to single-handedly provide past proposals, they would have to buy 30% of the Ave supply.

And if they do that and pass proposal, they are the ones who stand the most to lose from the proposal passing. So, because you have skin in the game as the outcome of the future of the mechanism, those people who who have the most to lose with the outcome going wrong are the ones that that have the loudest voice, and that's very important in these in these in these in these outcomes. And we we we we approximate that in boards by having large shareholders be able to place board members, right? And you kind of have a pure version of that in private equity where the people who own the whole company make make the the decisions. You're tying ownership to decision-making ability. [clears throat] Um and that's a that's a good thing.

It's not a bad thing. >> Yeah, I agree with the um I I I think like I I always kind of I think this discussion is a little bit sort of pre-dated in a sense cuz like, you know, the the main goal I think right now for the state of the industry is let's not focus on the word DAO, let's focus on the word token holder. And we're really at this point of the industry where we are basically getting a re-rating in terms of the type of investor that actually wants to buy into tokens, right? Cuz if you think about most of the activity and growth that's happened in crypto in the past sort of year and a half, you know, driven by like prediction markets and things like Hyperliquid, there are risk taking happening, but they're not actually like

dealing with tokens directly, right? And so, I do think this idea of token holder and token holder rights are becoming more more prevalent. Uh and that's really the main goal, right? Is can we trust these teams to build products that can actually scale and and can we actually underwrite growth here? And I think that's really like the stage of the industry that we're in right now. Yeah, I think about us as basically going from like series B to like series C, series D if if I just sort of use VC parlance. Um and I think sort of in that sort of quest to do that, uh we're probably still at the stage where you still need to sort of centralize decision-making and product roadmap under the team that has the most information uh and is probably the original team that actually built like the main protocol, right? And

so um my view is though is that as these sort of teams become bigger and bigger um it probably will get to a point where uh if they want to launch a second product or a third product under the same sort of, you know, interface or brand um it actually doesn't make sense to launch another token for that. What might actually make sense is to ask for a budget from the DAO to do that. And so in that direction, it's kind of like, you know, you're basically mapping ownership of the token and the resources to the amount of, you know, importance that you're giving basically to to the second product that may be generating value. Which is basically how like traditional corporations exist right now, too, but this is at least more fluid and people can at least build in

the open and then they can actually be audited in the open, which I think is really the sort of power of uh continuing the DAO structure. But I just think at this point right now, where we really need to focus on just like, hey, like, how do we grow? How do we have people believe in tokens again? And how can we serve and force this idea of token holder rights? And I think once we do that, then we can get to the second-order question of like, okay, how do we have the right controls and transparency around these people? And then I think both of these things are sort of independent, but eventually they will converge um into what I believe is like the end state of like what a public company in crypto would be, which is basically a token at scale. Uh and if

you think about I think you know, the biggest assets out there, like Bitcoin, like, you know, Satoshi was the issuer technically, I guess, if you want to use that word, but nobody knows who he is, right? And so who's the new voice of Bitcoin, right? And then with Ethereum, too, I think you have Vitalik still showing his soft power uh within the ecosystem, but it's also a little bit more decentralized. I think for most projects um you know, they're a little bit more earlier stage in terms of just like reach and global scale right now, where they probably don't need to have that level of decentralized coordination until they can actually scale and get to a point where investors have confidence like, "Okay, like this is not going to they're not going to be outcompeted.

Like they're not going to go away, uh and they have like some sort of moat that's going to help them continue in their business value." At which point then they can start to have these discussions around what's the most efficient use of capital, um how do we think about the right stakeholder base, uh and how do we sort of, um you know, make sure the the ecosystem is is continuing to thrive and and um continue to sustain itself. >> Felipe, do you have a minute to talk about what you think would be like the optimal outcome for either token holders or equity structures in crypto? >> Yeah, um and I'll and I'll go back to you know, it's the same answer, right? I think I think the Meta DAO structure really gets it right. Cuz you have accountability from day one.

Cuz you need accountability, otherwise giving people money on the internet will lead to theft unless you have accountability. That's a kind of an iron rule that that people have learned many times and and has been reinforced by this industry over and over again. So, I just think that giving people, you know, no matter whether they're early stage or late stage, giving people money without control will will just not go well on average. And we've seen all I mean, we've seen so many cases, right? Where people ICO, raise a lot of money, and then take the money and and run. Or they move to Bali and stop working, pay themselves private key, or they do consulting fee, you know, consulting engagements to design the brand and get paid $10

million and buy a house. Like it the surface area for fraud without controls is too big to ever have a a a situation without control. Um but we just need to find a way to impose controls that does not hamper business growth. Because the the the flip side of that is like the most important companies in the world today are still centralized and led by leaders, right? Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, they have very clear leaders who decide what's happening in that company. They don't have any of this doubt type of um of like fighting your internal structure every day. So, I think whether it's early or late stage, you just need to be able to balance both those things. I think Meta Dow is a credible attempt, a very

credible attempt to give the CEO operating leeway within the business. And then when it comes to capital allocation, or when it comes to budgets, or things where theft can be involved, where boards usually get involved in in equity markets, then you you submit it to a futarchy trade, vote, you know, whatever you want to call it, um where the token holders have a say. But I think getting that, you know, you know, it whether it's Meta Dow or somebody else, getting that balance right is critical. Because I you know, I'm coming up to the the end here, I do want to say tokens are not just kind of equity. There is a true token vision, that's that's true, and that the industry can rally around.

Like there are only 8,500 public companies for like half of the world population, right? And getting a public company, raising through the raising VC usually means being well connected in San Francisco or New York. Um and definitely living in the US for the most part. That's not exactly true, but it's mostly true. And the vision of having global capital flows on the internet, global fundraising through ICOs, um tokens that you can really design and innovate around, um we haven't even scratched the surface there because we have been kind of stuck on this token problem, in the middle of the token problem. But it is worth fighting for a good future for tokens. And I think that something like the Meta Dow system, balancing accountability and balancing the ability to execute, is is

critical to to to getting us into that next stage where we can focus on the benefits of tokens instead of the problems of tokens. >> Yeah, I agree with you completely there. I mean, you know, I don't know the actual number, but if you look at, let's say, the top 20, you know, most profitable sort of projects in crypto, I would probably argue like at least half of them are like purely on-chain businesses, and those businesses actually have tokens, right? So, if you believe, and eventually, now that we've sort of figured out the institutional plumbing with like ETFs and digital asset treasuries and those kinds of things, like it To me, it's the same outcome for the world where it's like, "Okay, your traditional company, you have some on-chain business model, but you basically go public in like the traditional realm." And then in the

parallel case, basically, you have another business that is also at that stage or level of growth and profitability and revenue, but they just are also represented through like an ETF of the actual underlying token, right? And I think both are actually like credibly positive outcomes for the space. And that actually would, still in my opinion, like meet the vision of like the original thesis of tokens and like why we did it cuz ultimately, I do think it probably, in the long run, is a better form of like fundraising coordination and actual sort of incentive and transparency.

>> All right. You guys, this was such a fun conversation. Thanks so much for sharing. And if you want to shout out any social handles or websites, go ahead right now. >> You can follow me at Thea Research on on Twitter. >> Yeah, you can follow me at @e_lon, so Elon. >> Okay. Great. All right. Well, thanks so much for joining, and thanks to everyone for joining this live stream.

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