Colosseum Unveils STAMP as Vector, Axelar Acquisitions Blindside Token Holders

Colosseum, a reputable venture fund and incubator, has unveiled STAMP, a new legal investment contract designed to align startups and investors ahead of a MetaDAO ICO.

STAMP (or Simple Token Agreement, Market Protected) comes after recent acquisitions of emerging crypto startups by giants like Coinbase and Circle left tokenholders clinging to abandoned assets.

With Solana’s cultural lens focusing on token holder rights and ownership, co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko asserted that decentralized governance models should give holders full control over their favorite protocols, including Solana Mobile.

STAMP: A New Investment Contract

Colosseum, a cornerstone of Solana’s builder culture and the operator of the network’s biggest hackathons, has published a new legal contract. Born as a resolution to crypto’s common, yet sub-optimal, dual equity + token structure, STAMP seeks to align startups and investors prior to launching via a MetaDAO ICO.

STAMP legally ensures that a token is the sole economic unit of crypto startups, which take advantage of MetaDAO’s decision markets to give tokenholders market-driven protections. The STAMP contract will be made available to all founders raising capital from Colosseum and has been designed in partnership with Orrick, a prominent tech law firm.

Beyond condensing a crypto startup's legal structure into one sole economic unit, STAMP also paves the way for private investors to gain transparent exposure to companies ahead of their public ICO. Early supporters gain a legally enforceable claim over up to 20% a token’s supply, which will be subject to a 24-month vesting period following issuance of a Delivery Notice.

On the other side of the equation, Colosseum’s STAMP ensures a milestone-based token allocation, between 10%-40% of the total supply, for teams.

Perhaps most importantly, Colosseum’s STAMP contract gives founders with existing equity structures the possibility of migrating their previous legal arrangements to the futarchy-based “ownership coins” popularized by MetaDAO.

$TNSR, $AXL Holders Rugged by Recent Acquisitions

Ownership coins and decision markets have taken center stage in recent weeks, with acquisitions leaving a bad taste in the mouths of token holders. 

In November, Coinbase’s acquisition of Tensor’s Vector application resulted in the Tensor Labs team being absorbed by the centralized exchange, with its token $TNSR being jettisoned to “community stewardship”.

More recently, Circle’s acquisition of InterOp Labs, the team behind Axelar, was met with cynicism from decision-market advocates. Axelar’s token $AXL crashed 37.5% after Circle bought out InterOp Labs, with the terms of the agreement stating that the “Axelar Network, Foundation, and AXL token are not part of the acquisition.”

Theoretically, ownership tokens governed by decision markets, such as those operated by MetaDAO, provide holders a layer of protection against acquisitions like these. Prior to an acquisition being executed, token holders would be able to trade the potential outcomes of whether the startup would proceed with an acquisition or not, giving them onchain, market-driven protection.

Owning the Full $SKR Stack

The divide between equity and token holder rights is only growing stronger in the crypto economy, causing impassioned debate between startup founders and ecosystem leaders. 

While Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko argues that tokens without cash flows are effectively worth zero and shouldn’t be required to be included in acquisition deals, Ranger Finance’s Cobra argues there should be no rights split between offchain equity and onchain tokens.

According to Colosseum’s thesis, the STAMP contract and the pursuant legal structure present a timely fix for this issue, uniting all ownership rights under a singular economic unit, the token. 

Yakovenko used the discussion to outline his vision for Solana Mobile’s $SKR, insinuating that token holders will have “full vertical control of the whole stack and own the relationship with the customer”.

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