Nick Forster, co-founder of onchain options exchange Derive, has proposed increasing the supply of the platform's native token, DRV, by 50% to support ecosystem growth and accelerate deals with institutional partners. The proposal, published yesterday, calls for the minting of 500 million new DRV tokens.
Forster stated that the tokens to be minted will be transferred to the Derive Foundation (formerly the Lyra Foundation). Under the proposal, existing investors will experience a maximum dilution of 8.25% per year over four years.
Forster stated that Derive has already secured a “major partnership to provide institutional-grade liquidity and custody services,” and that advanced discussions are underway with leading liquidity providers and traders in the industry. However, the name of the partnering institution was not disclosed.
Under the proposal, 46% of the newly minted tokens will be allocated to the core team, whose vesting period has largely been completed. This is intended to ensure team members remain on the platform. These tokens will vest over four years and can only be sold when DRV's market capitalization exceeds $150 million. According to CoinGecko data, DRV's current market capitalization is $28.5 million.
It was previously known that Derive had pledged not to print any new tokens. In the conversion from LYRA to DRV, the total supply was kept constant at 1 billion tokens.
Forster argued that increasing the token supply was necessary to compete with Deribit, the options market leader that was recently acquired by Coinbase in a $2.9 billion deal.
Derive also announced that it has parted ways with some team members and investors who previously supported its merger with Synthetix. That merger plan was scrapped in May after investors criticized the options platform for undervaluing it.
*This is not investment advice.
