Introducing Surge

Surge is a radically new type of launchpad. Users can buy deals that don’t exist yet, delete downside, put community before VC, accelerate closing, and improve compliance for token and RWA deals.

For fundraisers: Find early supporters and build a fundable deal. Start fundraising before you know terms or spend money on structuring.

For investors: Get paid for being early. Surge lets you lock in discounts on emerging deals. You can redeem at any time, and only pay for deals that become hot.

For crypto: Make crypto useful for mainstream finance with 10X improvements over TradFi security offers in initial cost, speed, accessibility, and scale.

The process

1. You see a deal that you like and you use the Surge UI to add a “stake”. Now you have a place in line to buy the deal, with bonuses for being early. You have reserved an early, VC-style position. The stake is represented by an NFT that holds the stake. Ideally, you like the deal enough to share it and move it toward closing.
2. Stay liquid. You can unstake at any time. You can transfer your NFT. This NFT holds your place in line, which can give it extra option value.
3. The “sponsor” who is proposing the deal posts specific terms, with a closing time. You have the power to unstake or ask for improvements. A key element of the offer is bonuses for early stakers. Deals that Surge designs will have an 80% discount (400% bonus) for the first staker. We’re also designing deals that are high float — more than 50% floating and unlocked through the deal, and liquid — all of the proceeds go into an AMM liquidity pool.
4. If you stay in through closing, you swap into the new asset, with bonuses.

These steps can be fast and fun using crypto and the internet.

Stake to your own wallet

Crypto “staking” is an advance over TradFi escrow and trust structures. A TradFi SPAC can raise $300M from US stock investors and put it in trust. A staking deal like Zircuit can collect $3B out of a much smaller DeFi market. That’s a 10X! Why does staking work so well?

• Stakers can start at any time. More importantly, they can unstake and get out at any time
• Global access to staking engages with more participants and is a better fit for global social media
• They can bring their own bank. Instead of handing over assets for an escrow agent or a trust to put in a bank, stakers can bring assets that are earning their choice of interest and points in denominations like USD, ETH, and BTC. The bank is already inside the token. This eliminates opportunity cost and adds reward stacking.

Surge improves on this structure by allowing users to stake to a wallet they own. This is a massive hack on the global accounting system. A stake that goes into your own wallet, where you can get it back at any time, does not require accounting or trigger a taxable event. The stake can go toward a deal that doesn’t exist yet. It gets you a place in line. If the deal moves to closing, this place in line will gain value from allocations and bonuses.

Surge uses “token bound accounts” as a magic ingredient. A token bound account is a wallet address that is tied to an NFT. When you stake, you get an NFT, and you get all of the assets inside it, including the stake. You can transfer the NFT, the recipient gets your stake, and your place in line, along with any points and interest that might be accruing.

This workflow gives a sponsor ways to manage the deal. The sponsor can offer allocations to a private whitelist, or open up to the public. As the deal approaches closing, the sponsor can ask buyers to add qualifications or sign up for a real name registry. We are working to add ID providers as a checkbox feature.

Stakers can get in to a pre-VC deal with no hassle, and later qualify for a purchase, or transfer their NFT+place in line to a highly qualified securities buyer.

DeFi can contribute to the real economy

Defi can become a significant channel for securities sales. You can put a Surge into an offchain VC deal by bundling it into an SPV. You can use it as a primary sales channel for tokenized securities. We’re experimenting with new types of SPACs and funds.

Feedback request

We audited and deployed the first release of Surge. It is a work in progress. Please help us improve by providing some feedback. Please let us know what you think on Twitter or with our investor form or fundraiser form.