Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author｜Azuma ( @azuma_eth )

The "LayerZero acquisition of Stargate" proposal, which has entered the formal voting process, suddenly changed.

On August 21, LayerZero's direct competitor, the Wormhole Foundation, publicly announced on X that LayerZero's approximately $110 million acquisition offer for Stargate underestimated Stargate's protocol assets and growth. Therefore, Wormhole plans to submit a higher offer and request a suspension of the current Snapshot vote for 5 working days to improve the bidding process and protect the interests of STG holders.

Background: LayerZero initiates acquisition

Regarding LayerZero's acquisition proposal for Stargate, it can be traced back to August 11th - please refer to " LayerZero proposed to acquire Stargate: both tokens soared by 20%+, but this group strongly opposed it ."

In the early morning of the same day, the LayerZero Foundation released a draft in the Stargate governance forum, proposing to acquire Stargate for a total price of US$110 million.

Specifically, the LayerZero Foundation proposes to convert all circulating STG (including those in stake/voting) into ZRO at a ratio of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO, at a price of $0.1675 per STG (actually slightly higher than the market price at the time of this posting) and $1.94 per ZRO. Following the acquisition, Stargate will be more deeply integrated into the LayerZero ecosystem, the Stargate DAO will be dissolved, and all future excess revenue generated by Stargate will be used to reduce the circulating supply of ZRO through a buyback program.

After the proposal was announced, the official Twitter accounts of LayerZero and Stargate frequently interacted with each other, and both sides talked about "win-win cooperation." As a result, ZRO and STG both soared that day. However, a closer look at the discussions on Stargate's governance forum shows that the vast majority of Stargates opposed the acquisition proposal, believing that LayerZero's offer was too low .

Early Progress: Voting Starts, Large Investors Sweep the Market

On August 18th, the proposal officially went to a vote on Snapshot, where STG holders will collectively decide whether to accept the acquisition offer. Compared to the initial proposal, LayerZero did not increase its offer price. Instead, it announced that it would share 50% of Stargate's total revenue over the next six months with veSTG holders (those who directly voted).

After the vote began, it quickly surpassed the minimum required number of votes, with support at one point soaring to over 97% (according to the rules, a vote is considered passed if it exceeds 70% by the end). LayerZero co-founder Bryan Pellegrino even proudly boasted on the CounterParty podcast, "This is the highest-turnout vote in Stargate history."

Such a one-sided vote is not surprising. Although many Stargate community members opposed the offer, LayerZero and Stargate are completely tied together with a back-end protocol and front-end product, making it difficult to view the two projects as two independent entities. Even half of the Stargate Foundation's board members are from LayerZero... Combined with the interactive language between LayerZero and Stargate, it is not difficult to imagine that the stakeholders on both sides already control enough voting rights. To put it bluntly, this is a vote that is "destined to pass, but requires a formality."

Wormhole's Conspiracy: Even if I can't steal it, I still want to disgust you

Perhaps even LayerZero and Stargate did not expect that Wormhole would intervene at such a critical moment.

As of this writing, unlike the "harmonious" interactions between Stargate and Wormhole following LayerZero's acquisition proposal, Stargate's official Twitter account hasn't posted a single update since Wormhole's acquisition proposal. LayerZero's only response, apparently from co-founder Bryan, is this: "That's not happening."

As of this writing, Wormhole has yet to make a formal offer, and the reason is rather amusing. Wormhole claims they need more time to conduct due diligence on Stargate's valuation because they aren't as familiar with Stargate as LayerZero, which holds half of the latter's foundation board seats.

Judging from the current situation, the subsequent development of this incident is nothing more than the following four scenarios, and Wormhole will be happy to see any of them.

• The first scenario is that Stargate suspends the voting, allowing Wormhole and LayerZero to enter the bidding process, with Wormhole ultimately assuming victory. In this scenario, Wormhole would directly seize the core product of its largest competitor, thereby grabbing even more market share.
• The second scenario is that if LayerZero wins the bid, or if LayerZero unilaterally raises its bid and pushes forward with the proposal, LayerZero will pay more funds to STG holders, and Wormhole can watch its competitors consume more without spending a penny.
• The third scenario is that Stargate ignores Wormhole's offer on the grounds that the process has already started, and the proposal will continue to move forward as is (currently supported by more than 50%). In this case, assuming LayerZero completes the acquisition, STG, which missed out on the higher offer, will inevitably be angry. Wormhole is happy to see the LayerZero community split.
• The fourth scenario is that Stargate forces the vote. Assuming the proposal ultimately fails due to opposition from the Stargate community (the current support rate is still over 88%, and the possibility of failure is extremely low), Wormhole succeeds in obstructing the plan.

Overall, I personally prefer the second and third scenarios . After all, Stargate is LayerZero's core product, and the latter is absolutely unwilling to bear the consequences of losing this product.

Fluid's COO, DMH, succinctly summarized the situation: "Stargate and LayerZero clearly had an agreement before the proposal. Wormhole is furious that LayerZero is buying Singapore with a bag of rice. Therefore, Wormhole is raising the price in an attempt to disrupt LayerZero's acquisition plan. However, Stargate will eventually be absorbed by LayerZero, and the market is well aware of this, so there won't be any drama ."

Wormhole may have known the final outcome was already determined before making the offer, but he was able to make his biggest competitor extremely disgusted with just a few words without any loss to himself. This is simply a top-notch conspiracy.