Why don't you take the money now

In the early hours of the day before yesterday, the Interop Labs team (the initial developer of Axelar Network) announced that it had been acquired by Circle to accelerate the development of its multi-chain infrastructure Arc and the CCTP。

By definition, acquisition is a good thing. However, the Interop Labs team, which has further elaborated in the same tweet, has caused a great deal. They indicated that the Axelar network, foundations and AXL tokens would continue to operate independently and that the development would be taken over by CommonPrefix。

In other words, the core of the deal is the integration of the team into the Circle to promote USDC’s application in the area of privacy calculations and compliance payments, rather than the whole acquisition of the Axilar network or its system of tokens. Team and tech, I Circe bought it. Your original project, I Circle, is out of control。

After the acquisition announcement, the Axelar token $AXL price went up in small amounts and then started falling, and has now fallen to about 15 per cent。

This arrangement quickly sparked intense discussion in the community about "token vs equity". Many investors have questioned the fact that Circe substantially acquired core assets through M&A teams and intellectual property rights, bypassing the interests of AXL currency holders。

"If you're the founder, you want to issue a token, you either treat it like an equity or you leave. I don't know

In the past year, similar cases of "teams, technology, no tokens" have repeatedly occurred in the currency ring, causing serious harm to diaspora investors。

In July, the Foundation of the Layer 2 Network Ink under Kraken acquired Vertex Protocol, a centralized trading platform based on Arbitrum, to receive its engineering team and its trading technical architecture, including synchronized order books, permanent contract engines and currency market codes. After the takeover, Vertex shut down its services on nine EVM chains, while the token dollar VRTX was abandoned. After the announcement, the VRTX dropped by over 75 per cent that day, and then it became "zero" (currently worth only $73,000)。

However, the holders of the $VRTX still have at least a little bit of comfort, because ink TGE is still receiving 1% of the airdrops (the snapshot is over). Next, there are worse ones, which are directly invalidated and are not compensated。

In October, putp.fun announced the acquisition transaction terminal Padre. At the time the news of the acquisition of Padre was announced, it was also announced that the Padre token would no longer be used on the platform and that there were no future plans for it. As a result of the last response to the defunct declaration online, the debundling of the debundling of the debundling of the debundling of the debundling of the debundling of the debundling of the debundling, the debacle has fallen sharply。

In November, Coinbase announced the acquisition of the Solana trading terminal built by Tensor Labs, Victor.fun. Coinbase integrates Victor's technology into its DEX infrastructure, but does not involve the currency rights of the Tensor NFT market itself or $TNSR, and the Tensor Labs team has partially shifted to Coinbase or other items。

THE MOVEMENT OF $TNSR HAS BEEN RELATIVELY SMOOTH IN A FEW CASES, AND HAS BEEN DRIVEN BACK, WITH PRICES NOW RETURNING TO THEIR LEVEL AS A NFT MARKET TOKEN AND STILL ABOVE THE LOW POINT BEFORE THE ACQUISITION。

In Web2, it is legal for small companies to be acquired by large firms in the form of “teams, technological intellectual property, but not equity”, known as “acquihire”. In particular, in the science and technology sector, “acquihire” allows large firms to rapidly integrate good teams and technologies in such a way as to avoid a long process of recruitment from zero or internal development, thereby accelerating product development, entering new markets or improving competitiveness. Although unfavourable for small shareholders, it has stimulated overall economic growth and scientific and technological innovation。

Nevertheless, “acquihire” must also satisfy the principle of “act in the best interests of the company”. These examples of the currency ring have caused the community to be so angry that, as “small shareholders” of currency holders, they are completely disapprove of the fact that they are “acting in the best interests of the company” and have been bought to better develop the project. Projectors often dream of landing shares when the project itself makes a fortune, and pay money when everything starts or falls short (the most typical example being OpenSea). When the project owners earned money in tokens, they turned to find their own homes, and the past projects remained in their résumés。

So, do you think the money-crunchers have to keep breaking their teeth into their stomachs? And just the day before yesterday, Ernesto, former Chief Technical Officer of Aave Labs, published a governance proposal called "$AAVE Association Phaase 1: Ownership" , in which a gun was fired in the currency ring to defend the rights of tokens。

The proposal advocates clear ownership of the core IP, brand, equity and income interests of the agreement by Aave DAO and Aave token holders. “One of the most influential proposals in the history of Aave governance” was publicly endorsed by the service provider's representative, Marc Zeller and others。

Ernesto mentioned in the proposal that “a number of previous posts and comments were strongly hostile to Aave Labs because of events in the past, but the proposal sought to remain neutral. The proposal does not imply that Aave Labs should not be a contributor to DAO, or lack the legitimacy or capacity to contribute, but the decision should be made by Aave DAO. I don't know

According to an encrypted version of KOL @cmdefi, the reason for this conflict was that Aave Labs replaced the front-end consolidated ParaSwap with CW Swap, and the resulting costs went to the private address of Aave Labs. Accordingly, Aave DAO supporters consider this to be a form of looting because, with the existence of AAVE governing tokens, all interests should flow first and foremost to AAVE holders or remain in the treasury by DAO voting. And before that, ParaSwap's income would continue to flow to DAO, and the new CW Swap integration changed the situation, making DAO think it was a plunder。

This is a very straightforward reflection of a conflict similar to "shareholders and management" and once again highlights the awkward positioning of token rights in the encryption industry. In the early stages of the industry, many projects were promoted by `values' in token currency (e.g. through pledge awards or outright direct sharing of proceeds). However, since 2020, the enforcement actions of the SEC (such as the prosecution of Ripple, Telegram) have forced the industry to shift to "utilized tokens" or "governance tokens" that emphasize the use of rights rather than economic ones. As a result, token holders are often unable to directly share in project dividends — income from the project may flow to the team or VC-held shares, while token holders are like small shareholders who use white-collar power generation。

AS IN SEVERAL OF THE EXAMPLES MENTIONED ABOVE, PROJECTERS TEND TO SELL TEAMS, TECHNICAL RESOURCES OR SHARES TO VCS OR LARGE ENTERPRISES, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME SELLING TOKENS TO DISPERSED HOUSEHOLDS, WITH THE ULTIMATE RESULT THAT RESOURCE AND EQUITY HOLDERS HAVE A PREFERENTIAL ADVANTAGE AND THAT CURRENCY HOLDERS HAVE BEEN MARGINALIZED OR EVEN LOST. BECAUSE TOKENS DO NOT HAVE LEGAL INVESTOR RIGHTS。

In an attempt to circumvent the regulation that "no token may be a security" , tokens are being designed to become "no use." As a result of circumvention of regulation, scattered investors find themselves in an extremely passive and unprotected situation. The cases that have occurred since this year have already reminded us in a sense that the current problem of the "dissemination" of the currency circle may not be that people really don't believe in narratives — narratives are still good, profits are still good, but what can we expect when we buy tokens