In the "US$80 million" dispute, Reef Finance and Alameda Research disagree. What is right and wrong?
Editor's Note: This article comes fromBlock beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Block beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)
Block beats BlockBeats (ID: BlockBeats)
, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
On March 16, the "cooperation" dispute between the DeFi protocol Reef Finance and the crypto market maker Alameda Research escalated, with both sides sticking to each other.
Reef Finance believes that Alameda Research sold the tokens, and did not express its long-term attitude as a strategic investor. Alameda Research believes that Reef Finance did not abide by the off-exchange transaction agreement, refused to execute the transaction, and publicized its investment, which violated the way of market transactions.
Rhythm BlockBeats translated and organized the articles published by both parties on this matter, and sorted out the whole story of the incident as follows:
Controversy 1: Disputes about the way of cooperation agreement, handshake deal or written agreement?
On March 16, Reef Finance CEO Denko Mancheskino issued a document stating that his team had contacted Alameda Research in September last year, but had not received investment from the institution. This year, Alameda Research stated that it intends to make a strategic investment of 80 million US dollars and integrate Reef into the Solana blockchain. Regarding the investment of 80 million US dollars, the other party did not provide a written agreement.
In response to this, Alameda Research issued an article: "In the field of encrypted OTC transactions, handshake transactions like the one described here are common. We have done many OTC transactions of this size before, and this is how we reached an agreement. Before that, there was no problem. 」
Controversy 2: $20 million REEF token transaction, sell or hold?
Reef Finance CEO said that the team sold $20 million worth of REEF tokens to Alameda Research at a 20% discount, and tracked the trend of the sold tokens, and found that the $20 million worth of tokens were transferred to the Binance platform , provided a screenshot of the data on the chain.
"In the interim, Alameda expressed interest in investing an additional $60 million in Reef Finance," which was rejected by Reef Finance. The CEO of Reef Finance here suspected that "selling tokens on the Binance platform" was the reason why the team suspended the OTC agreement with Alameda Research.
To this accusation, Alameda Research replied: "'Alameda has expressed interest in investing an additional $60 million in Reef Finance during this period.' This is not the case, as can be seen from the quote we posted - $20 million is a settlement settlement instead of the end of the transaction, another $60 million was agreed from the start, just not yet settled. Batch settlements are also common in cryptocurrencies - we've done this before, no encounter any problems."
In light of Reef Finance's response, Alameda Research would like to clarify their view on the events:
1. Alameda Research invested an initial $20 million and expressed interest in investing an additional $60 million, Reef said. That's not the truth; Alameda Research originally agreed to the $80 million deal and locked in the price for the entire investment. After settling the first payment, however, Reef reneged on his word and declined subsequent payments.
2. Apparently people have different expectations about deals when it comes to PR etc; Alameda Research apologizes for any misunderstanding on the part of Alameda Research that may have led to this outcome. However, now that the deal has been explicitly agreed to, it would be dishonest to backtrack.
3. Alameda Research did not immediately sell all REEF.
Controversy 3: Screenshots of the conversation between Reef Finance and Alameda Research
The CEO of the Reef Finance agreement released a screenshot of the conversation with the Alameda Reaseach team. The screenshot shows that Alameda Research still holds a large part of the unsold REEF tokens on the Binance platform. If the attitude of the Reef Finance team towards the transaction agreement has not changed , then Alameda Research will likely respond as follows:
(1) Publicly announce that they will not cooperate with the REEF team;
(2) Remove REEF from the shelves;
(3) Cooperate with Binance and other exchanges to delist REEF.
Regarding the content shown in this chat screenshot, Alameda Research replied: It is worth pointing out clearly that Reef Finance misinterpreted the terms they themselves agreed to, and the specific chat content will be listed below.
The following is the relevant chat content provided by Alameda:
On March 8, 2021, Alameda and REEF agreed to an OTC transaction:
Alameda: "...we will spend $80 million to buy 270,270,703 tokens. Is that acceptable to you?"
Reef:「675.675.675」
Reef: "2.7 billion REEFs, priced at $0.0296"
——
Alameda: "These are the amount of (tokens) we can get?"
Reef: "Yes, that's all"
Reef:"Alameda: "Okay, sounds good! Please confirm again, can we reach a 1/4 transaction tonight? Then we will transfer you 20 million US dollars (can USDC?) to you, and then receive 675,675,676 coins REEF?"
Reef: "We want to announce you as large investors, okay?"
Chat content on March 10:
Alameda: "We are going to settle the settlement, how to do it."
We can proceed with the 20 (million, or 20 million US dollars) settlement after announcing (Alameda investment Reef agreement). "
Alameda: "When will it be announced?"
——
Alameda_2: "Tentatively scheduled at 10:00 pm on Friday, Hong Kong time"
Reef: "It's okay to announce it early tomorrow"
——
Alameda: "I guess the content of the announcement should match the size (of our payment)."
Reef: "We can, but not necessarily all (maybe 40/80), so that they (readers) realize there are unfinished investments"
Reef: “Okay, let’s trade another $20 million in tokens tomorrow or Friday, right after the announcement.”
Alameda: "OK"
After the investment announcement, March 12:
Alameda: "Shall we make another settlement?"
Alameda: "Please let us know when you can trade!"
March 13
Reef.f: "Communicate with the team, there are some obstacles because there is no lock-up."
Alameda: "Okay, a deal has been agreed. Understand it's a problem, but (the problem) shouldn't be at this stage."
March 15:
Alameda: "Is there any progress on your side?"
Reef: “Hello, our proposal is this: We can either increase the investment or we can keep the investment at 20 million US dollars and don’t make it public because it is as harmful to your brand as it is to Reef.”
Alameda: "1. This is absolutely unacceptable. You are in breach of a binding contract. This is neither legal nor something a partner would do.
2. We will never cooperate with you again.
3. We can add 3 months of linear ownership to the rest, but only if we get all token ownership up front; we obviously don't trust you to still be able to transfer money by the rules.
4. If you do not agree to fulfill the agreement or the above version within the next 3 hours, we will continue to clean up (sell) work, which is our responsibility to the community.
5. We don't want you to continue negotiating in ways that violate the agreement..."
Reef: "1. Where is the contract?
2. Yes.
3. Definitely not.
4. Yes.
5. Well, I don't want that either. "
So far, both parties have issued documents to explain their positions and opinions. It can be seen that both parties are still looking forward to cooperation at the beginning. However, the latter situation does not seem to be moving in the direction expected by each other.Our Official Response to Recent Events Regarding Alameda》
《 REEF updates 》
