[kaizendad]

I'm extraordinarily confused as to how this was not an issue handled before Basis got to this point. It's not a secret that regulators would like to have purview over these types of assets, and that regulators have in fact successfully pursued those involved in other cryptocurrencies that turned out to be fraudulent. Of all the risks the Basis founders had to confront -- building a new technology, proving out a new algorithm, getting interest from others, etc. -- understanding at least the threat of regulation seems like among the simplest.

What am I missing?

[leppr]

The issue was handled in their SAFT with a provision that states they would return the funds if they failed to deliver a product. Regulations on new technologies aren't a fixed thing, they were optimistic (someone has to be).

Another theory could be that the regulation issue is a pretext. Those big investors that bet heavily on crypto and are now in the red could have insisted to get their money back. Given how low the sentiment about crypto presently is, these investors are in a far better position to make lucrative plays now, than keeping their money in a project that raised near the top of the bubble.

[kaizendad]

I'm more inclined to the latter. Sure, they hedged their bets in their SAFT, but to say "our plan involves not being regulated, and we give up if we are" strikes me as silly.

But you're right, maybe they expected a different level of regulation than they were ultimately going to be subjected to, and maybe they just didn't communicate that.

Come to think of it, if I were a big bank, skilled in handling regulation, I might absolutely give a bunch of $ to a startup in this space, knowing I'd, at worst, own a big chunk of them, and, at best, prove out the market with someone else's time, then get to launch myself, with my own giant regulations team behind everything.

But that's probably paranoid.