The founding team of the Backpack crypto exchange is planning to start taking steps to go public in the U.S. The exchange, co-founded between 2022 and 2023 by Armani Ferrante and Can Sun among others, is already mapping out a funding strategy to raise $50 million at a $1 billion pre-money valuation — solidifying its position as a crypto unicorn. While Sun served as the head lawyer at FTX, Ferrante is an ex-Solana developer who was also part of FTX’s sister firm, Alameda Research.
Backpack is scheduled to open a Token Generation Event (TGE) in the coming weeks or months. On Monday, the exchange shared its tokenomics plan for its utility token — that will have a total supply of a billion tokens.
As per the information shared, Backpack plans to release 25 percent of the total supply — 250 million tokens at the TGE. Of this, 24 percent will be airdropped to the participants of Backpack Points, a rewards system designed to incentivize engagement with the exchange. One percent tokens will be reserved for holders of Mad Lads NFTs as the Mad Lads team makes for a crucial part of the Backpack team.
Closer to the IPO date, Backpack plans to unlock an additional 37 percent of the supply when the exchange hits certain milestones like international expansion or new product launches.
The remaining 37.5 percent tokens will be locked for a corporate treasury until one year after the IPO completion.
In a detailed post on X, Ferrante, who serves as the CEO of Backpack disclosed that not a single founder, executive, team member, or venture investor will be given a direct token allocation to avoid insider dumps.
“Insiders “dumping on retail” should be impossible: no founder, executive, employee, or venture investor should receive wealth from the token until the product hits escape velocity,” Ferrante noted. “Liquid tokens should exclusively go to users, fueling growth triggered by key product milestones.”
For now, it remains unclear if Backpack has already submitted a confidential filing to the U.S. SEC for an IPO proposal review. More details remain awaited for now.
Last year, a plethora of crypto firms went public in the U.S. These include Bullish, Circle, eToro, Figure, and Gemini among others.