Chia Network has just released the second major revision of their business whitepaper. You can see their announcement here, and if you are interested in the long term plans of the company I do recommend checking it out. The overall impression is that it much more cohesively written than the previous versions, and has an overall narrative that flows better. As corporate documents read, it wasn’t terrible. It is about 35 pages and covers a lot of ground.
Now its been awhile since I read the original whitepaper, and I am not interested in reading a second one this morning, so its possible that some things I mention were in the first version and I have forgotten. But the main points that stuck out to me about the new version were the introduction to Chia going over the last couple of years of history, and the greatly expanded details on the Strategic Reserve / Pre-Farm and the current corporate makeup of “The Company|.
The introduction is what gives the whitepaper its narrative flow, and is fairly well written. It still could use a bit of polish, but it is greatly improved in every way from the first versions. To a potential investor or partner it does a pretty good job of telling the tale of Chia Network from Chia’s perspective. Of course in typical corporate fashion on one will read it and ask all these questions in expensive meetings, but at least its there.
That part wasn’t what interested me the most though, the most interesting points came out of the Strategic Reserve sections where they put in much clearer writing the governance around the Pre-Farm, as well as changes to their investor agreements. According to this document all of the SAFE agreements that protected investors via potential access to the pre-farm have now been converted to more traditional investor agreements. This means that there is effectively no lien against the pre-farm. That, combined with the controls in place around that pile of XCH means that for practical purposes that money cannot be considered to be in circulation. Absent Chia Network going bust and creditors getting their hands on it, they will not sell for the time being.
Also, there are two Chia companies holding the pre-farm. The US company we are used to dealing with and a European subsidiary who we don’t hear too much about. And they have plans for a 3rd as well, out of Singapore. Neat.
The other greatly expanded section I think was very interesting were the details around the investors and the board. There isn’t any groundbreaking news there but it does provide some details that make me a little less nervous that Chia Network could run out of runway before they take off with revenue coming in. On top of the $77 million USD they have raised from their institutional investors they detail a $10 million dollar convertible note that, I think (although I am not an expert) will serve as a few months of “oh shit” money to cover any major delays or give them some breathing room if the end of that runway starts to show up. Again, good news for anyone holding XCH as it is another layer of protection on that investment.
I cannot really recommend anyone go and read 35 pages of corporate self-promotion, but if you are interested in where Chia is headed in the future it might be worth the time. If not, the main takeaways are the additional security of the pre-farm having converted those investor agreements and that Chia is probably in a better position financially than we thought, if anyone was really thinking about it at all. Also, and this is cool, Chia Network included one of the hashes for the Space Marmots Groundhog Day Marmot Hunt on their announcement page. See if you can find it. It took someone about 3 hours or so to post it to us and get their offer guarantee. Nice touch from “The Company” to engage with the fun side of the community, while doing the boring parts of running a soon-to-be public company.
