Original Title: "Long-Termism: Backpack's IPO Gamble"
Original Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
In the "Wild West" of cryptocurrencies, "founders cashing out" and "project teams cutting韭菜" have become bare-faced acts of profit plundering, turning into chronic and stubborn ailments that hinder the development of Web3. Therefore, "token economics" is often seen as both an accelerator for team wealth and a litmus test for user confidence.
However, when we turn our gaze to Backpack, we see a completely different design: Backpack has chosen a thorny path directly targeting industry pain points: giving all liquidity tokens to users at TGE, and fully tying the team and investors' profits to the company's IPO progress.
Backpack's move has abandoned the "VC gathering, retail investors paying the bill" wild-west design. Whether ultimately successful or not, this is a worthy attempt in the history of cryptocurrency.
Delayed Gratification: The Long-term Game Between Teams and Capital
In Backpack's token economy, the most attention-grabbing aspect is the strict limitation on team and investor benefits—no founders, executives, employees, or venture capitalists can directly receive token allocations.
In the words of Backpack's founder and CEO Armani Ferrante, the "escape velocity" Backpack is pursuing has never been about a short-term milestone of the market value breaking through a certain number of billions of dollars or the user base reaching a certain number, but rather after the company successfully completed its IPO in the United States.
All tokens originally allocated for "team incentives" and "investor returns" (37.5% of the total supply) have been deposited into the company's "corporate treasury," i.e., on the balance sheet of Backpack company. Even after a successful IPO, these tokens are subject to a full lock-up period of at least one year, further eliminating the possibility of "flipping immediately after listing."
This "delayed gratification" design is the best protection for the long-term value of the project. In the crypto industry, the collapse of too many projects stems from the "short-sightedness" of teams and investors—selling tokens too early for cash, causing token prices to crash, the project to lose user trust, and ultimately leading to its demise. However, Backpack's approach completely cuts off the path for insiders to "cash out in the short term," forcing the team and investors to "ride the project through thick and thin."
Of course, an IPO is not an easy path. Backpack's founders honestly admit that going public could be just around the corner, or it could be a long way off, or even ultimately unattainable. But regardless of the outcome, they will give it their all. This "no victory, no establishment" determination makes Backpack stand out among a crowd of short-sighted crypto projects, yet it has also earned the trust of users who truly value long-term benefits.
User-Prioritized Token Distribution: Igniting the Growth Engine with Incentives
In Backpack's token economics, all liquidity tokens are fully allocated to users. In Backpack's view, users are the core driving force behind project growth, so tokens should become the fuel that incentivizes user participation and drives product development.
· Total supply of 1 billion, TGE directly releases 25% to the communityAmong them, points holders account for 24%, and Mad Lads holders account for 1%.
· Triggered by key product milestones before IPO (37.5%)Each market expansion and each new product launch is an opportunity to incentivize users with tokens and will trigger the corresponding token unlock. This design continuously attracts new users to join and expand the community size through a predictable token unlock model.
More importantly, according to Armani Ferrante's description, Backpack sets strict constraints for token unlocks: the new ecological value brought by token unlocks must always be greater than their dilution effect on the token price.
This design ensures both the users' core interests and the long-term value of the project is not diluted by short-term unlocking behaviors, making token incentives a true catalyst for platform growth, achieving a tripartite win-win of "user benefits, ecosystem value increase, and project growth."
Under Compliance: Slow Is Fast
In addition to the innovation in token distribution, another distinguishing feature of Backpack is its pursuit of compliance. This stands in sharp contrast to the prevalent logic in the industry of "expand first, comply later" and "prioritize scale over compliance."
According to Armani Ferrante, "Backpack currently serves only about 48% of the global regions. This seemingly slow expansion is driven by the pursuit of compliance."
This strategic choice may miss market opportunities in the short term, but from the perspective of long-term development, it is key to building a trust barrier.
Currently, Backpack is positioned as a compliant cryptocurrency trading platform, offering cryptocurrency spot, derivatives, and lending services. However, it is not content with merely being a pure cryptocurrency trading platform, but is committed to building a compliant platform that integrates cryptocurrency assets with traditional financial (TradFi) services. To achieve this goal, the team is laying down banking channels globally and plans to gradually introduce diversified services such as securities products in the future. In January, Backpack also launched a unified predictive portfolio product that uses cross-margin and cross-collateral.
Market Perspective: How to View Backpack FDV?
The market's attitude toward Backpack also reflects, from the side, the controversy and potential of its model.
According to Axios citing informed sources, Backpack is negotiating new financing terms, with a pre-money valuation reaching 1 billion U.S. dollars.
On the prediction market Polymarket, market expectations for the Backpack token have shown significant volatility: the market bets that the FDV of the Backpack token on the day of its launch will exceed $1 billion with a 21% probability, and in November 2025, this probability once reached over 80%. Of course, such volatility largely stems from the inherent uncertainty of the crypto market itself and also reflects the market's cautious attitude toward the "IPO-like returns" model.
Summary
When tokens become tools for project teams to cash out, and users become targets to be exploited, the crypto industry loses its original ideals. Backpack's token allocation physically separates Web2's equity incentives from Web3's token utility.
· For the team: The only way out is to strengthen the product and ensure compliance until the IPO. If the company fails midway or is unable to go public, the team's equity will be worthless, with no possibility of cashing out.
· For the community: They are no longer a liquidity exit for VCs. Tokens are purely user rewards and ecosystem tools, not a team's ATM.
The choice of Backpack is to redefine the value logic of crypto projects with compliance, transparency, and long-termism, showing us another possibility in the Web3 industry.
As Armani Ferrante said: "We either go big, or we go home." This statement is not only a declaration from the Backpack team, but also a mandatory question for the entire Web3 industry: Are we going to continue celebrating in the speculative bubble, exhausting the industry's trust and future; or are we going to choose, like Backpack, a harder, slower, but more promising path, and rebuild the industry ecosystem with long-termism?
Of course, an IPO is no easy task, and the road is long and arduous, especially in the crypto industry, which faces multiple challenges such as regulation, market conditions, and competition, with surprises and uncertainties everywhere.
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