Samwise85 |🎒

Co-Owner @DegenDojoArt
@Backpack & @Madlads

[OnsOranje @OnsOranje]

𝗢𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗝𝗘 𝗙𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 - an Oranje original 🟠🎬

#NothingLikeOranje #FIFAWorldCup

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

All in your Backpack 🎒

[Armani Ferrante @armaniferrante]

It's been almost 3 months since the BP TGE, and it feels like a lifetime.

It's been over 3 years since we started the exchange, and it feels like a lifetime.

From the beginning, we've taken a different path from just about every new entrant this cycle. It's been a long path. It's been a hard path. But it's the path we needed to take to build a modern financial institution for the future of money.

With every day that passes, we inch a little bit closer.

It's not just about crypto. It's not just about stocks. It's not just about trading. It's not just about perps. It's about doing the hard things in the real world that few are willing to do to, and for which there is no short cut.

It's only when you do those things can you genuinely merge the crypto economy with the traditional economy--not just in one country, but for the entire world. It's easy to say. It's hard to do.

It takes years, decades, to make any progress. Heck, we moved to Japan over three years ago so that we could get a bank account and legally serve the market. But we are happy to build this business not in one cycle, because we will build it over a lifetime.

As we rollout Backpack Securities, we begin a multi-month release cycle of hitting milestones that have been years in the making, and we couldn't be more excited to share them with the world.

Today, Backpack is your brokerage, your exchange, and your wallet. It's the result of a global team pouring their hearts into the product, through the good, through the bad, and never yielding.

Every day, we push forward. Brick by brick, and I hope you love this brick as much as I do.

🧱

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@chris93eth @armaniferrante Enjoy this milestone first 😉.

[Backpack 🎒 @Backpack]

Public Beta is live.

Trade real US stocks and ETFs alongside crypto, perps, and yield, all within one account.

Real ownership under New York law. Cash dividends, brokerage transfers, and corporate actions rolling out during Public Beta.

24/5. Instant execution. Traditional market liquidity.

No fees in June: https://t.co/iDxg2wGAwr

[Armani Ferrante @armaniferrante]

Will share more on this soon. It’s been over three years in the making to get to this point, but the holy trinity has been achieved. The only other exchange in the world that has gotten regulated perps, spot, and payments live in the EU is Kraken. The other will be Backpack. We’re coming Europe.

[adidas @adidas]

In this Backyard, it’s “win or go home,” and this crew hasn’t left since the 90's.

Where there’s a pitch, there’s a legend.

#YouGotThis

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@Backpack WAO

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@38KdotSOL @MadLads @Backpack Was fun making these! ❤️

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@KRoelandschap

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@SawyerMerritt Orderd

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@NftTcollector @MadLads @Backpack WAO

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@yanggg85 @armaniferrante WAO! Nice lad bro!

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

Mistakes have been made that’s part of building. We fall and get back up, and we’ll only come back stronger.
But if there’s one person I trust, it’s @armaniferrante . This man is working around the clock to make his vision a reality.
Never fade Armani!

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@Luc100k Let’s go

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@Shine0x exactly!

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@armaniferrante We fall and get back up, and we’ll only come back stronger.

[Armani Ferrante @armaniferrante]

On FUD.

FUD is an opportunity to either address misunderstandings or to identify mistakes and simply fix them. With every TGE, emotions run hot, as people focus on a single number, the token price, determining one’s feelings. It’s human nature, and because Backpack has such a large community around the world, spanning from advanced traders in Asia, to wallet users on every network, Mad Lad holders around the world, and everyone in between, the TGE is a time where people vocalize their views.

I would like to address several different topics I’ve seen floating around over the past few days to set the record straight and offer my perspective.

- OTC. I can’t believe I have to say this, no, we aren’t OTCing our own tokens to cash out. See the tokenomics. Fake news. End of story. What is true: buyers reached out to me and asked for OTC. I am happy to help buyers find more tokens. Unfortunately, due to the bad history of other crypto projects using OTC to cash out, folks assumed the worst when they saw me post about OTC in discord.

- Mad Lads. All existing Mad Lad holders pre-TGE retain their Backpack VIP status. New holders do not. Some like this, some hate this. I understand both perspectives. My perspective is that Mad Lads has always been an evolution alongside Backpack. We went from the whitelist games inside Backpack => pre-reveal inside Backpack => reveal boss inside Backpack => xNFT inside Backpack => airdrops inside Backpack => VIP points inside Backpack => the BP token. Each one of these stages created a clear path for Mad Lads to get to the next stage, always focusing on long term holders over people that come and go. There are people that follow the path, and people that do not. There are people that evolve with us and people that do not. Our approach from the day Mad Lads was born has always been to focus people on the Backpack product. Naturally, new people came into Mad Lads with their own pre-conceived notion of what it was or what it should be. This creates tension. But we have always had a strong vision and we will always stick to it. The people that use the product always get to the next stage, where every stage answers a single question: how do we push Backpack forward. When designing token utility, it’s a question of economics, and it would be a disservice to BP to not align incentives around it. There’s an additional nuance worth pointing out: Backpack is different from basically every other product that dropped a mined token because we KYC users and are selective about the regions we open up. Those users have been out of the game, so to speak, not because I want to do that–nothing upsets me more than not being able to serve users in a particular region (what founder would want that?)--but it’s because we have chosen the path of building a crypto native financial institution. That path is long and hard. For these users, we have maintained the path to get to the next stage and have communicated that. When we open up regions, these regions will get their drops, and we will be running new campaigns to get more drops just by using the product, and that brings everyone up to speed with the same VIP benefits of the original pre-TGE seasons. For the long term holders, nothing has changed. The key issue is with respect to new NFT holders. Some people will hate this. Some will think it’s sound economics. I understand both perspectives. We are doing what we think is best.

- Sybills. Our goal was to protect retail users competing for points against sophisticated players splitting accounts and giving themselves an unfair advantage over those that don’t. The mistake we made: our process was too black and white. From the team’s point of view, we had a line and we stuck to it. From the community’s point of view, the line is nuanced. We did not sufficiently take that into consideration.

- Price/FDV. With every token comes the human nature to think about the price at all times. There are good ways to think about price and there are clearly illegal ways to think about price. Our position is simple, we are building over a long period of time, and we are not making short term decisions. 24h post-TGE FDV is not a meaningful metric. Even 1 week post-TGE FDV is not a meaningful metric. If you ask anyone that’s ever built anything, they’ll tell you the same. Many people will take issue with that statement, and that’s ok. Ultimately, you have to look at our incentives and decide for yourself. The fact of the matter is that the team and I are incentivized to make Backpack a success with arguably the most extreme tokenomics ever created. What happens if the token goes to zero and stays there? Our company fails, and we get nothing. Some people might rebut saying that we get rich from the company revenue. No. That is simply not how companies work. We don’t get rich from a bad token price. We are punished in the most extreme possible way. And we are rewarded in the most extreme way only if we achieve all of our hopes and dreams. The way it should be. This is by design. Beyond this post you won’t see me talk about price or FDV. You will see me talking about building and creating long term value. And it’s only by doing that, can BP become a success.

Every project goes through trials and tribulations. This is certainly a moment for us. We are nothing without our community, and we will serve it in the best way we know how. I have complete conviction, I am all in, and the team is all in. Don’t trust us, look at the tokenomics to decide for yourself.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you especially to those that have supported us this week. It means a lot. We will continue to review the above, particularly the cases around sybils, and get back to building.

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@Sakrexer Yes

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@MadSimon_sol @armaniferrante Brick by brick 🧱

[Samwise85 |🎒 @Samwise85nft]

@sol_nxxn 0 sold and buying every day!