Berachain co-founder clarifies the Nova Fund's special refund right claim: it was fabricated by a malicious former employee; the Nova Fund remains a l...

Odaily Odaily reports that in response to market rumors that "Berachain offered the Nova Fund a special refund right of $25 million," Berachain co-founder Smokey clarified on the X platform: "The story's framework is (A) incomplete and (B) inaccurate. We understand the need for dramatic narratives in a market where everyone is struggling, but this story appears to be directly orchestrated by malicious actors, particularly some very specific and disgruntled former team members."

A few weeks ago, we first learned that Jack had contacted token holders, former employees, and ecosystem projects, asking a variety of leading questions (many completely unrelated to the final article's topic). During his brief stint as an investigative journalist for Blockworks, he began asking token holders questions that were both misleading and factually incorrect. Although we never received a contact from Jack, our communications team decided to reach out to him and offered the following statement: 'Blockworks' reporting on this matter is neither accurate nor complete. Brevan Howard remains one of Berachain's largest investors. Their investments involve multiple complex business agreements, but they participated in the Series B funding round like all investors, and the documentation is identical to that of all investors. —Smokey the Bera' With the end of Blockworks' editorial operations, Jack was dismissed, and we have no further discussion prior to this article's publication on Unchained today.

The facts are clarified as follows:

1. Brevan Howard co-led our Series B funding round a year ago from our Abu Dhabi office through Nova, a new pure-liquid investment vehicle with terms identical to those of other investors. A few months ago, Nova led this funding round for Berachain.

2. Nova's compliance team requested the inclusion of terms to prevent the locked BERA purchased during the funding round from failing to complete the TGE and go public, thus disqualifying it from being a qualifying investment for Nova's liquidity strategy. Therefore, we signed the letter attached to this article, committing to Nova's involvement in further business arrangements, including providing liquidity protocols on the network, which is only possible upon network launch. This attached letter was not created to secure a deal with an uninterested party, nor was it created to prevent post-launch losses, as the article implies, and there is precedent for this, as noted by the outside lawyers mentioned in the report.

3. Contrary to everything this article implies, Nova remains one of the largest token holders in Berachain, and possibly the largest. They are liquidity providers, holding locked BERA from their Series B acquisitions and liquid BERA assets purchased on the open market, consistently providing support through highs and lows. If anything has changed, it's that they've increased their BERA exposure over time, despite operating a liquidity fund in a challenging alternative asset environment.

4. Several other claims in the story are completely untrue. Despite the statements in the article, no other buyers received the best treatment in the Series B round. Despite hints to the contrary, Nova remains a holder of locked tokens on Berachain.

I apologize to all those outside the media circle for all the information they have been subjected to due to this media cycle. People love to flaunt their work on platforms like BeraChain and Bera PA, where the mix of factual and excluded information provides a perfect opportunity for some. Ideally, I could discuss some of the topics mentioned more explicitly, but I also have an obligation to respect the confidentiality and compliance restrictions we adhere to, while considering the best interests of token holders.

According to previous reports by Unchained, Berachain's provision of a $25 million special refund right to a fund may have violated the SEC's anti-fraud requirements.