Unchained - Why Berachain Gave Brevan Howard a Secret $25M Escape Hatch - Ep. 961

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Crypto funding rounds often look glamorous from the outside: big name investors, big valuations, big narratives. But behind the scenes, the terms can look very different — and sometimes, radically s...o. In this episode of Bits + Bips, host Steve Ehrlich sits down with reporter Jack Kubinec, who broke the story about Berachain’s Series B and one of the most unusual terms we’ve seen in a major token deal: a lead investor receiving the right to ask for its entire $25 million investment back, for up to a year after Berachain’s token launched. Jack walks through what the documents show, why lawyers say the clause is extremely rare, and how a refund right like this could impact other investors, and even trigger MFN clauses. They also unpack Berachain’s market struggles since TGE, the state of the Nova Digital fund inside Brevan Howard, and the transparency questions this episode raises across crypto venture investing. Read the full story here on Unchained Thank you to our sponsor Uniswap!  Host: Steve Ehrlich, Executive Editor at Unchained Guest: Jack Kubinec, Crypto Journalist and Podcast Host Timestamps: 0:00 — Start 0:25 — Steve introduces Jack 2:24 — What the documents reveal 5:17 — Why Brevan Howard’s refund is a big problem 9:21 — How refund clauses really work 14:09 — Jack’s interactions with the Bera team and how Smokey responded to the story 19:29 — Why the MFN clause is key 26:19 — How Breva Howard Digital didn’t actually invest in Bera 30:18 — What investors should learn from a deal like this Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 If I was another investor in Barretain Series B, and I wasn't told that Nova Digital was given a refund right, I'd feel a little bit left out to dry, right? Like, they get this unlimited downside risk, but I have to actually risk my capital. And, you know, if I was a Series B investor and I spent $3 per token, I could be down quite a bit at this point in time. And so that's really what's unique here. I'm executive editor, Steve Ehrlich here at Unchained. I have Jack Koubenak with me who published a... a really interesting story about Darcane Series B fundraised and some unusual terms offered to a very
Starting point is 00:00:37 big name investor. So welcome, Jack. Thanks for joining us. And why don't you briefly just introduce yourself since you're new to the podcast. Yeah, thanks, Steve. Stokes to be here. A big fan of Unchained. I, as you said, spent the past two years at Blockworks. I was actually their first and only editorial intern back in the day in 2022 covered this trial, all that fun stuff. And most recently moved into a role as kind of an investigative and scoops reporter over there. We put out work on, you know, movement labs, if people remember that story, the pump fun, token sale, a bit gets layer two morph.
Starting point is 00:01:21 But at the time that, as listeners of this show may know, the blockworks let it It's Newsroom go. There was one final kind of project I had outstanding, which was this piece about Barrett Chain. And it was not a piece that I wanted to just let go as I moved into a new gig. So I got in touch with Unchained and they were very kind to help me get this thing published. Yeah. Again, we're all sorry to hear about what happened with the editorial team at Blockbergs.
Starting point is 00:01:47 But I guess at least this one very unique case, their loss was our gain. We're happy to publish it. We're going to get into all the details. I know that this story garned a lot of attention online in particular, but first, let's take a brief break to hear from some of the sponsors who make the show possible. Are you a builder who needs to add on-chain trading to your product? The Uniswap Trading API from Uniswap Labs offers plug-and-play access to some of the deepest liquidity in crypto.
Starting point is 00:02:15 It's on-chain execution at an enterprise level. More liquidity, less complexity. Visit hub.uniswop.org to learn more. All right. So let's just kind of level set here. I mean, why don't you just briefly tell us about the story, Jack? Like, what are like the two or three key takeaways that people who read it should come away with? Yeah. So I obtained documents from Barachain, which is a layer one blockchain. It's themed around Bears. Earlier this year, I raised $142 million in funding, I believe. And one of their, lead backers was Brevin Howard Digital, a large, very famous hedge fund. And what these documents
Starting point is 00:03:00 showed was that the sort of term sheet that a fund within Brevin Howard actually signed offered the firm a refund right, where for up to a year after TGE or when the Berra token came out in February of 2025, that fund could ask for a refund. Those things are tax. at any time. Now, this is a really remarkable kind of right. It's very unusual, according to lawyers that we spoke with. And, you know, I'm not a lawyer and can't make a strong claim here, but the legality of it is also questionable if they didn't tell other investors that this fund
Starting point is 00:03:43 within Brevin Howard received this refund right. I guess, you know, what would be relevant for people listening to this show is that we can't exactly say if the Nova Digital, which is this fund, within Brevin Howard has actually exercised its refund right yet. A lot of that stuff probably would happen between exchange accounts or however it is. But basically what we can say is that they have the right at any point between now and February of 2026 to basically demand that Barra chain send them $25 million in cash, which is a tough break for any project. Yeah. I mean, this story was really kind of interesting to look at because, I mean, we've both
Starting point is 00:04:24 looked at these types of deals for years. And I think for some people that aren't in the know on this particular industry, it's hard to underestimate or hard to, I guess, overestimate the value of having a fund like Brevin Howard on your cab table really brings. I mean, it's the similarly judency that comes with like a millennium or an Apollo or Hamilton Lane or any of these other funds that are just known worldwide. Like these aren't crypto hedge funds. These are like big hedge funds.
Starting point is 00:04:51 Bradford Howard, I think, manages $34, $35 billion, and their name means something. So, I mean, to the extent, I know you say you got the documents from Barrow Chain. I think you didn't actually get them from Barrett Chain. I know you can't tell us precisely where you got them from, but they were documents, I guess, issued by... Signed by Barra Chain. One more can you tell us about just the mechanics of this Series B, and how it fits into like Barachain's trajectory. I know in the story you kind of go through some of the origins of Baruchin
Starting point is 00:05:29 as this like fun sort of Baratheen blockchain that was very buzzy. But recently it's been on hard times. And I think that part of the story is really important to understand all of the impacts, all the relevant, I guess, takeaways that come from Berra Chain having this, I'm sorry, Brevin Howard having this refund right that is going to come do in the next couple of months. So maybe set the table on Barre Chain to begin on. Totally, Steve. And I think it's important to emphasize, like, to take a very left curve look in very simple terms at this deal, it is a great deal for Nova Digital, right?
Starting point is 00:06:04 The fund within Brevin Howard. If I could take that deal, I would. I have to give you money. And, you know, if the token performs well, I get to keep the token. But if it performs badly, I get my money back. Like, that is a fantastic term. But it's a really bad deal for Barrett Chain, right? because, you know, on BarraChain's side of things, one of their lead backers who's supposed to be taking this venture bet on their token succeeding can ask for their money back, you know, up to a year after TGE.
Starting point is 00:06:33 So that's kind of one of the things that immediately struck me when I first came across these documents is like, why would Barra Chain agree to this term? I still don't know if I have a great answer that I can give you. I think you could speculate that it's based on Brevin Howard's brand or something like this. that they were willing to accept really bad terms. But the way it kind of fits into the larger story of Barrett Chain is that if you want to look at this really charitably from Barretain's perspective, it's kind of like calling your own shot. It's like we are so confident that we are going to have the Barrett token trading in a year above the $3 sale price that we gave to the Series B investors that will give you this call option. But you're never going to exercise it.
Starting point is 00:07:16 Right. So, Nova Digital spent $3 per Barra token. You know, if Barra was trading at $10 in February of 2026, Nova Digital probably doesn't ask for its money back because it's more worth it to them to keep the tokens. They three-xed their investment, right? But so far, that's not been the case. Barra chain launched back in February. It's had some difficulty, I think, achieving, like, meaningful use. A lot of the metrics are down across the board from where they were in February and March. There's not a lot of usage on the chain currently. Some of the apps have launched on hyperliquid or maybe they've just shut down altogether and things like that. And so you add all these pieces together plus just a challenging crypto market for any token right now.
Starting point is 00:08:07 Barra chain is far below the $3 per token that Nova Digital invested $25 million. And it's currently trading around $1. It's at a third of the price that, you know, the Series B investors got. And this causes a real problem, right, for Barachain. Assuming, again, that Nova Digital has not yet exercised the refund, right? They haven't asked for their $25 million back. If that price doesn't go above $3 by February, it's, you know, in Nova Digital's interest to ask for the $25 million back. Now, maybe they can work out some kind of, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:45 backroom agreement or something, but based on the terms of the contracts that they all signed, you know, Barretain is a chain that has struggled to really achieve meaningful use over the past several months. And now it's staring down a potential, you know, $25 million hole in the balance sheet, right? Okay. So let's unpack this, this refund clause a little bit more because, I mean, that is obviously being part of the story. I know in the piece, you walk through the idea of having a refund clause is not new to crypto, and this isn't the first example of any type of refund clause. Although, again, based on lawyers that you spoke to, it's the very first time that this was done really for just one investor, and we'll get into potential
Starting point is 00:09:30 baritrine potentially hiding this from some other investors that had a right to know. But how have refund clauses typically worked in crypto, I mean, going back over the last few years? Yeah, that's a good question, Steve. And, you know, this is a complicated story in some ways, and so it's really good to kind of explain the context. Yeah, refund rights, you know, as we dug into this, these documents a little more. It turns out that refund rights aren't completely unheard of. It's not like Nova Digital invented this new clause when it signed this sign side letter with Barachain. They do occasionally happen, but what's really unusual about this specific case is that typically refund rights are a kind of insurance against the
Starting point is 00:10:15 project not launching a token. So if I'm some big venture fund and I'm going to invest, you know, very early in a crypto startup, I may say, hey, you know, in the case that you kind of fold early, you never launch a token, I never actually realize the gains on this investment. I want you to offer me a refund of my investment in that case. That's a pretty great term for a venture investor to get anyways. But what's really crazy is to say, you know, or really unusual, I should say, is for you to say, hey, even if you launch a token, I want basically, you know, a no, no questions asked call option that I can exercise at any point for up to a year after the TGE. That was something that people really haven't heard of because, you know, there's, yes, this hedges
Starting point is 00:11:07 against Barra chain not launching a token. It also hedges against the Barra token not performing well. And yeah, as you mentioned, Steve, this does happen before. One prominent recent example was this DFI project called Flying Tulip, which actually did something very similar. They said, hey, anyone who invested, you get this perpetual, I guess it's more of a put option. Yeah, I think when you're sitting call option to 4-2 for Brevin, you meant put option as well. But yeah. It's been a little bit since I was in school. You're like half my age.
Starting point is 00:11:41 It hasn't been that all. That's fair. You get this put option, you know, at any time. You can ask for your money back in Flying Tulip. Obviously, the difference there is that Flying Tulip publicly advertised this and they made it available to every investor. But if I was another investor in Barrett Chain Series B and I wasn't told that Nova Digital was given a refund right, I'd feel a little bit left out to dry, right? Like, they get this unlimited downside risk, but I have to actually risk my capital. And, you know, if I was a Series B investor and I spent $3 per token, I could be down quite a bit at this point in time.
Starting point is 00:12:16 And so that's really what's unique here is the fact that, you know, based on our reporting, other investors weren't in the know about this refund right. And certainly the public wasn't told, right? Retail investors that bought Bera didn't know that Novi Digital was allowed this refund right for up to a year after the TG. Yeah. And I think one interesting way to think about the refund right. especially during the ICO days, it's almost like a Kickstarter campaign. A lot of these tokens were sold under like Saps, like a standardized contract, I think it stands for like standard agreement for future token sales or something like that.
Starting point is 00:12:54 And yeah, the idea just with a Kickstarter, you put the money in, but if they don't launch, they don't make, or they don't have or they don't reach their quota, I guess, to build the product or whatever, you get your money back. So maybe not a perfect analogy, but that's kind of the mental model that people like me, I guess, try to use. Hey, founders and developers. If you're looking to bring on-chain trading to your product, wallet, or platform, check at the new Uniswap Trading API from Uniswap Labs. It's your plug-and-play gateway to global on-chain liquidity, no deep crypto experience required, and no need to manage complex integrations
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Starting point is 00:14:04 Visit hub.uniswop.org to learn more. I want to get into the most favorite nation clauses and some other stuff there, but I think at this point it makes sense to talk about what Beretian's response has been. I know that you tried reaching out to Smokey and the team several times, even back when you were working on this at Blockworks, and then when we decided to publish it here, they gave one sort of tourist statement that appeared in the original version of the article, but Smokie then issued a longer, I guess, statement on X last night.
Starting point is 00:14:45 What did, what was sort of the interaction with the Barrett team? What did they say about the story? And what questions do you still have? Yeah, that's probably good to bring up. So, so maybe to kind of just tell the longer story about this piece in general. I did most of the reporting on this piece, while I was still employed at Blockworks. The piece was fully written. It was fact-checked. It got like multiple okays internally. But basically there were, you know, a couple ducks that we had to get in a row before publication.
Starting point is 00:15:19 And that obviously didn't happen before the layoffs kind of eliminated our whole news team as they go in a more data-first direction. And so I had kind of already been in touch with all the relevant actors. done all of my journalistic due diligence while I was still at Blockworks. And that's why, you know, I think that's important context, right? That Barichain was not caught by surprise by this. More than a month ago, I sent over a detailed list of questions that outlined everything that we were planning to report on, and none of that changed over the past month. In response to that list of questions, Barrett Chains PR emailed me and refused to actually answer directly any of the questions that I had.
Starting point is 00:16:11 But they said, here's a statement from Smokey to Barra. They also offered a call. As time went by, I said, hey, would love to schedule that call. That I followed up twice there. That was never responded to. Then shortly before we published an Unchained, I let them know that, you know, pay no longer at Blockworks. but still working on this piece, it's going to go out and unchained.
Starting point is 00:16:34 And, you know, the first time I actually got any substance from the Barra team was with this Smokey DeBara statement. I replied to his tweet, so I'm not going to go into it too much. But I think the big takeaway from how I look at it is that I don't think he actually challenges the facts in the article very much. I felt like there was nothing that really, you know, if you read the substance of the art, article, the things that he responds to are either, you know, not really pertinent to the matter
Starting point is 00:17:07 at hand or they just don't really refute the reporting that we put out there. Yeah. I'm sorry, I was just going to say, I mean, a couple things you mentioned that I think are really important there. I mean, something, like, best practices for any journalist is there should not be surprises when something comes out, good or bad, especially if it's potentially a negative story. So, I mean, I know you're a conscientious reporter, and we made it, we had a very detailed plan to make sure that we gave them every opportunity to comment on the story. And Anselaata knows precisely what was going to be in it because we, the idea is always to be truthful and objective.
Starting point is 00:17:50 We're not doing some sort of dramatic TV show where we need to have a big reveal at the end. That's not what this business is. So I know you were very diligent about doing that. And yeah, and in his sort of like refutation for lack of a better term, I mean, I think it was funny. One thing that he mentioned is that he said, unlike in the article where we currently claim some Series B investors had this most favored nation right, which we're going to get into a second, that wasn't actually something that you claimed in the article, the claim for MFN rights related to the Series A. And two, I guess the bigger, more substantive piece that he said, which he actually updated the article this morning to inquiries. incorporate is that the refund right was really meant as a hedge against, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's really meant as a hedge against barricene, not launching a token or getting
Starting point is 00:18:42 listed on an exchange. But one of the things I know you pointed out when you followed up on his thread on X is that how does that square with the fact that the refund right is available for up to a year after the TGE? Long past, obviously, when a token would be launched and listed on exchanges. And at least as far as as up to this recording, we've gotten no response to that. So we'll just have to see what happens with all that. But we're very conscientious always about trying to give every person, every opportunity to comment on a story before it goes live. That's, I think that's the, that's why this job is so difficult sometimes, but also also so important. Okay. So let's get into the MFN rights, because that's really a crux here.
Starting point is 00:19:29 And that gets into who might feel aggrieved about this and what could happen next with the story. So briefly, just walk us through what that is and why it's so relevant here. Yeah. So a most favored nation right is a clause that you generally will see in some venture deals, which basically say, like, if I'm an early investor in a startup, I get equally good terms as any later investor. So, you know, you can't have someone come in in the series B if I invest in the series A and get much better terms than I got. Like, I'm entitled to get as good of terms as the series B person, right? That's a basic overview of what these things mean. Now, what we reported on is that at least one investor who's not Nova Digital, I think they have an MFN as well if you look at the side letter. But one investor who's not Nova Digital had an MFN.
Starting point is 00:20:25 that would apply to the Series B. So, you know, Series A seed, some earlier investor were reporting had an MFN. Now, what this would mean is that, and Steve, I actually might lean on you a bit here because I think you have more expertise in this area, but there's basically an argument to be made that giving a refund right to Nova Digital should trigger that MFN clause that says, hey, this is a more favorable term that a later investor is getting that I'm not getting. And so, you know, we would need to see all of the documents, I'm sure. But there is a world where basically Barrechain offering Nova Digital slash the fund within Brevin Howard, a refund right and not informing other investors would trigger that most favorite nation right and, you know, basically violate the clause that those, that investor was given.
Starting point is 00:21:21 Yeah. I think that's a good way to put it. I mean, I did, as you mentioned, I helped a little bit with this part of the story. The MFN right is, it relates to almost like free trade, like most favored nation status, where like if the U.S. has a trade agreement with one country, they always have to have, you can't offer the same or better terms to somebody else. In this case, there is some nuance. I mean, at a very high level, the idea is yes, that if you have this clause,
Starting point is 00:21:46 no one else should be given better terms than you. What do better terms mean? that can mean a lot of different things, but I mean, when it comes to someone basically having a free put on a token that especially is down 67%. That's pretty meaningful. And if you were that firm, you might feel aggrieved. If you were one of those firms LPs, you might be really agreed. So it seems easy to think that this is a triggering clause for that. There is some nuance, though, as I said, because it really comes down to, like, are all these investors, can you sort of compare them on an apples-to-apples basis?
Starting point is 00:22:30 And when we spoke with a couple of lawyers about this, it's not always as clear-cut as you think. For one, if, for instance, Brevin had separate commercial agreements or something else beyond just investing money, that could theoretically be used as justification. for not extended for the refund right not falling under the MFN clause. And this is also one of the reasons we wish, I guess, Smokey had spoken to us or to you when you're doing the story
Starting point is 00:23:03 because in his long Twitter post last night, I think actually, in one of the quote he gave you for the story, he mentioned some commercial agreements with Brevin and you followed up and asked them what those were, but we didn't get a response. And then in the Twitter post, he did hint
Starting point is 00:23:19 that, I think, Mark and Making and some other commercial agreements there as well, which like if other investors that had an MFN clause but weren't engaged in that, maybe that's something that could sort of be like exculpatory for lack of a better term. Another lawyer spoke with also highlighted how if there's a significant disagreement or divergence in the amount of money invested, maybe that's something that could also sort of clear out the way of having to fall out of this MFN clause. So there are potentially some mitigating circumstances here. Unfortunately, it's hard for us to exactly know what those were,
Starting point is 00:23:58 which is why in the story we wrote, or I guess you wrote, how you basically put this out there for the reader so they could understand the different factors that need to be weighed here, and then I guess we'll just have to see what happens. The one thing that, though, I think is very clear. I mean, you put out, I mean, one of their other major investors' framework ventures, I mean, they bought, I think, $72 million worth of this token, And I believe the purchase price for a token was $3.42, which is in a higher speak, where Brevin bought it.
Starting point is 00:24:32 I know that we're not able to disclose who the investor was with the MFN right. But I mean, framework, I mean, I think when we did the story, they're looking at a paper loss of $50 million from $50 million plus from the bearer investment. And obviously, I would imagine almost every other investor is. is also sitting on a loss of at least a similar percentage, if not nominal dollar terms. So I would imagine they all would be, would love to have this type of refund right if they were able to get it. Yeah, exactly. And look, the most favored nation stuff is a little complex.
Starting point is 00:25:08 I'll grant that. And the reason we think it's important is that, you know, that begs the question of, was this refund right illegal? Did Barretchen violate the law by offering? one investor this right. But you don't need to say that this right is illegal to say that it's a bit unsavory. And I think it speaks to a larger issue that we've seen in crypto recently, which is that oftentimes the way business is really done behind the scenes is not the way that it appears in public or on podcasts or however else, right? There can be a way that certain insiders are given
Starting point is 00:25:44 terms that are not available to all the investors that are being encouraged to buy these tokens or become part of the community or, you know, stake their bearer or whatever it is, right? Brevin Howard's fund was given this right that nobody else got. And, you know, nobody in public, even as they were encouraged to follow, invest in, care about this ecosystem, was told about that. And so this doesn't need to be illegal to just be something that's quite unsavory. And I think the type of behavior that the crypto industry would do better to go without. Actually, I think it's kind of interesting that, I mean, Brevin Howard, I don't believe he's getting out of crypto, but you did point out in the article how the particular fund under Brevin's umbrella is being spun out.
Starting point is 00:26:32 When do you just tell us about that and what you think that might mean in the bigger picture? Great note, Steve. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. So over the course of reporting, something really interesting that came up is that basically Brevin Howard Digital itself. did not exactly invest in Barachain. What happened is that there's this long short crypto fund called Nova Digital that was initially within Dragonfly and other crypto VC. It was acquired by Brevin Howard in 2023, I believe. This guy, Kevin Hu reportedly sort of runs the operations in there. The way I've heard it talked about is they're a little more defy native, you know, in the trenches,
Starting point is 00:27:16 that kind of thing within this really large institutional hedge fund, right? What I learned as we were reporting this article out is that Nova Digital is in the process of being spun out from Brevin Howard Digital. They're parting ways. I learned this based on my own sourcing. It's also been reported in Bloomberg at an earlier time. And so what that basically means is that going forward, Brevin Howard is going to have no actual involvement with Barretchen anymore.
Starting point is 00:27:46 The severance is not technically complete the last that I heard, but it should be complete sometime soon. And once that's the case, you know, it's Nova Digital on the cap table. It's not Brevin Howard Digital. And I think that's kind of an annoying little note we have to make again and again. But it's, it's an important distinction, I think, which is that, you know, Brevin Howard Digital is not really involved with Barretted going forward. And for what it's worth, per a source I spoke with, This is not a typical practice within Brevin Howard Digital, right? They have other kind of crypto venture activity outside of the Nova Fund. And this is not something that they typically seek out is refund rights. This was kind of a, from what I'm told, a Nova Digital unique thing. Yeah. And it's actually kind of interesting the timing because I don't believe we're clear on exactly when the spin out will be completed.
Starting point is 00:28:44 and I guess what that means for who would get the $25 million if it, like if they execute this refund right, which seemed very, very likely. So we'll have to watch that. I mean, it would make sense maybe for Brevin to keep the fund in-house until that's done, but I don't know what kind of legal paperwork. I don't know what their arrangement looks like as far as like who actually might be the beneficiary of those funds. So that's something else's interesting.
Starting point is 00:29:12 It's an interesting question. And, you know, another interesting, I think, kind of open question that we didn't get into in the article because it's land of speculation. But Barichain recently launched a DAT with Green Lane holdings it's called. And a number of their investors are stockholders in the DAT. You have Polly Chain, Framework, Dow 5. I think there's a couple others on there. Nova Digital is nowhere to be found. They're not investing.
Starting point is 00:29:40 They're not stockholders in the debt. they're a liquid fund according to what Smokey is saying on Twitter and so you know they could go buy the the Barra dat but they've chosen not to and I think that's just an interesting detail I don't have any idea why but I'd be curious to know sort of why their name was kind of absent from that list of investors well if nothing else it seems like it was a smart move because you put a price table for Barra and Greenlein in the story and they're both going a down. So maybe that was for the better, at least for now. All right, well, let's wrap up. But before we do, I just want to see if you have any final thoughts, anything, any other lines of inquiry that you're
Starting point is 00:30:25 really interested in your following. I know we already discussed a couple of them. And also, you touched on this a little bit a few minutes ago, but what should investors think about when they read a story like this? There's a lot of backroom dealing when it comes to CryptoVC. there is a lot, there's significant information asymmetries between like teams and investors, and this story really highlighted a lot of that. So like what, yeah, I mean, again, other areas to follow up or just like, what are some key takeaways that readers should have so that they can use your story to make better decisions in the future?
Starting point is 00:31:04 And in an official not financial advice for, Yes. Look, anyone who's spent time in crypto knows that the industry has a bit of a transparency problem. The deeper you get into the industry, you see that oftentimes what is going on behind the scenes is not the same as what's talked about publicly. And that was really my motivation in pursuing this piece. You know, even though I'm not at Blockworks anymore, I really wanted to take the time to bring the reporting to unchained and kind of get their eyes on it. and get this piece out because, you know, I think investors in the public deserve transparency of what's really going on behind the scenes. What types of deals are people really getting that retail investors kind of aren't being told about. And in that spirit, I just want to say, like,
Starting point is 00:31:55 look, maybe we got the story wrong. And if that's the case, I would love to see the evidence for it. I don't believe that there's been any compelling evidence that our interpretation of events is incorrect. But, you know, if there are some kind of commercial agreements that sort of add more context or can kind of rationalize why Barachane chose to offer Nova Digital this refund, right? Like, please put it out in public. It would be a little embarrassing for me or whatever, but that's fine. That's not really the point of this. The point is that, you know, the public gets to be informed about what's going on. Really what I'm just hoping for is transparency here. As far as Naviour, all the comms around this. It's a very complex story. I would think that of the however many people
Starting point is 00:32:42 viewed the article on Twitter, you know, viewed the reporting on Twitter, the number who actually clicked through to the unchained article is fewer, and the number of people who actually read the docs is even fewer than that. So I kind of understand how this game works a little bit. What I would ask is, if you're confused, go read the article. And if you're still confused, click on the docs. The full documents unredacted are linked in the article. This is pretty unprecedented in journalism. This is something I've never done before, but we were able to get the documents in a place where we were able to actually publish them for transparency. So we can say with complete certainty that we know that this refund right document was sent and signed. We know that this Saff and this term sheet
Starting point is 00:33:25 were signed and exactly what was in them. So we've put all the evidence out there for you. You can do your research on your own. And just as you watch, things come out, you know, crypto Twitter, it's a bit of a cesspool for anyone who's spent any time there. Look at the questions that people are answering, right? The questions I want to see answered are, why was Brevin Howard's fund given a refund right? And were other investors told about that refund right? And other MFN investors as well. That's really what I want to know. And I guess you could throw in there as well, has Nova Digital exercised this refund right? If they wanted to ask for their $25 million tomorrow, could they still do that? These are the types of questions that I think could very
Starting point is 00:34:14 easily be answered with, you know, a sentence response. And I don't think that anybody has answered those questions yet. And so there's a lot of noise and a lot of speculation and so forth, but just keep focused on the real core questions of the article. And, you know, myself and a lot of us, I think, hope to get more kind of transparency on that down the line. All right. Great. Well, I think that's a great way to wrap things up. Thanks for bringing the article to us and working with us to get it out.
Starting point is 00:34:43 Thanks to everybody for watching and listening. And tune in again for new episodes and new conversations with that. on bits and dips the interview. Have a good day. Thanks so much, Steve.

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