[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.