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