Berachain exposed VC refundable "secret protocol" destroys user trust? Encryption lawyer: practically unable to exercise rights

Berachain was exposed to $25 million in VC refund terms, and the community was mired in legal arguments. (Synopsis: Berachain: Victims of the “Balancer Hack” must check their status and retrieve ETH and BERA in time) (Background supplement: Let the liquidity flywheel spin, Berachain Bear Chain Mining Full Guide) Berachain, which claims to be built for “crypto-native institutions”, has fallen into a crisis of trust, the BERA token has plunged 93% since the TGE high, and an outflow document recently exposed hedge fund Brevan Howard's Nova Digital has a $25 million “anytime refund” privilege that has sent the market by shock. The institution-exclusive “capital protection clause” is really staged when I think of the capital preservation of VC. The famous public link Berachain, this morning by the English blogger broke the news, it 们家给联合领 investment party Nova Digital (Brevan Howard Digital's fund), privately has a year after the year of the original refund. 该机构,曾在 Berachain B 轮 15 亿估值,投资了 2500 万美元,而现在 Bera 代币市值才 5.5 亿。 … https://t.co/V3sOSyEW9g pic.twitter.com/53UURfXdUi — AB Kuai.Dong (@_FORAB) November 25, 2025 According to the content of the agreement disclosed by Jack Kubinec, a professional media person in the cryptocurrency circle, Nova Digital is there If you are not satisfied with the return before February 6, 2026, you can request a full refund. This is equivalent to getting a put option for free, and you can earn income when the price of the currency rises, and zero loss when it falls. The current BERA price is about $1, which is much lower than the $3 entry cost of Nova. Community retail investors are quite unhappy with “risk sharing”. Founder Smokey debunks rumors that “only work before TGE” Smokey makes the biggest explanation at the moment: Good morning, hello everyone, In response to the recent smear report, I want to make the facts clear. I also don't want to respond knee-reflexively without the advice of the legal team (because of the allegations) with some of our biggest stakeholders, who have been very supportive, so sorry to keep you waiting. Straight to the point: The narrative framework of that story (A) is incomplete (B) inaccurate. We understand that dramatized narratives are marketable in an atmosphere where everyone is headwinds and markets are downturned, but this article looks particularly heavy on direct input from malicious actors, especially a few very specific, disgruntled former team members. We first learned a few weeks ago that Jack was reaching out to coin holders, former employees, and ecosystem projects with all sorts of inducing questions about Berachain (many of which were completely unrelated to the final theme). During his brief time as an investigative journalist at Blockworks, he began to ask coin holders questions that were both misleading and factually wrong. Although Jack never reached out to us, our PR team decided to reach out and provided the following statement. “Blockworks' reporting on this matter is neither accurate nor complete. Brevan Howard remains one of Berachain's largest investors. Their investment involved a number of complex commercial agreements, but they participated in the Series B round with the same documents as all investors.” —Smokey the Bera Jack was subsequently fired for Blockworks' editorial business, and we didn't have any further discussion until Unchained published this article today. Let's get the facts right: Brevan Howard came out of his Abu Dhabi office a year ago and co-led our Series B round through Nova, a new liquidity-only strategy vehicle, on the same terms as other investors. Earlier, Nova had reached out to Berachain and expressed his intention to lead the round. Nova's compliance team requested a clause to prevent LOCKED BERA purchased in the financing from being eligible for investment in Nova's liquidity strategy if Berachain fails to complete the TGE and go public. To that end, we signed the side letter posted in the article and agreed on additional commercial arrangements that included an agreement to provide liquidity on the network – something that would only be possible once the mainnet went live. The side letter is not as the article suggests, it is to make a deal with an investor who was not originally interested, or to avoid losses after the launch; And there is a precedent for this practice in the industry, as stated by outside counsel in the report. Contrary to all the insinuations in the article, Nova is still one of Berachain's largest, and perhaps even “most” holders. They are liquidity providers, holding LOCKED BERA obtained in Series B and also buying liquidity BERA in the open market; Between the high and low of the market, they always support. If anything, their exposure to BERA has increased over time, even though they operate liquidity funds in a harsh altcoin environment. Smokey's response is as above, but the anger of the community is still not parallel. What Do Crypto Lawyers Say? Joseph Axisa, the lawyer hired by Xiong Chain, also issued a reminder: Nova can hardly enforce this “refund clause”, because the refund right seems to be relaxed, but due to the combination of “suspension” and “termination” clauses, it is not feasible in practice. He explained in more detail that since Bera TGE began to suspend until the “fund entry date”, usually on the same day or earlier as TGE, it is equivalent to sealing the beginning of this exercise. Nova withdraws any amount (salary, development, legal fees, etc.) from the fund wallet, and the right to refund is permanently terminated, usually within hours or days of Nova's receipt of tokens. Joseph Axisa also criticized the reporter Jack for only watching a paragraph of the agreement and concluding that it was just as wrong to watch the movie trailer and say he understood the whole movie. Related reports Bear Chain Berachain mainnet launches $630 million $BERA airdrop, what is the estimated price? Let the liquidity flywheel spin, Berachain bear chain mining full guide “Berachain exploded VC refundable “secret agreement” destroys user trust? Crypto Lawyer: Actually Unworkable” This article was first published in BlockTempo's “Dynamic Trend - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media”.