On February 10, 2026, Backpack Exchange is negotiating a new round of financing of approximately $50 million at a pre-money valuation of about $1 billion, but is facing a lukewarm pricing from the secondary market. On the prediction market Polymarket, traders only give a 26% probability that its token will exceed a $1 billion FDV on the first day, showing a clear reservation towards this "paper valuation." Meanwhile, overall market sentiment has sharply contracted, with the fear index dropping to 9, indicating "extreme fear." After ETH plummeted 43% in nine days and only rebounded to about $2,100 in a high-volatility environment, it is no longer an "inertia benefit" for emerging trading platforms to achieve high valuations; instead, it has become a hard battle about trust, compliance, and real performance.
The Return of the Former FTX Team: Overlapping Halo and Shadows
● Team Background as a Double-Edged Sword: Backpack is built by former executives from FTX and Alameda, a combination that has an inherent narrative advantage in technology and product execution, familiar with high-frequency trading, derivatives design, and liquidity operation logic. However, the same group was present at the site of the collapse of the most destructive centralized exchange in crypto history, making any expression of "experience backing" naturally carry the shadow of regulatory, compliance, and ethical risks.
● Emotional Residue After the Collapse of Trust: The collapse of FTX not only destroyed billions of dollars in assets but also reshaped users' and institutions' risk perception of "star teams." For Backpack, potential users often waver between professionalism and unease when they see the "former FTX team" label, while investors need to make complex trade-offs between "they know where the black holes are" and "will they create black holes again," which directly dilutes the premium space of the valuation story.
● Mandatory Lessons on Compliance and Transparency: Under such a historical burden, Backpack wants to rebuild trust, relying solely on brand packaging or executive endorsements is meaningless. The real test will fall on dimensions such as asset proof, risk control framework, and governance structure transparency, as well as whether it actively connects with mainstream regulatory jurisdictions to build an auditable and accountable operational system. In other words, it must use higher transparency and self-restraint than similar platforms to offset the credit discount of the words "former FTX."
Pre-Money $1 Billion Bet on 26%: A Tug of War Between Paper Valuation and Real Money
● Growth Assumptions Behind High Valuation Negotiations: The current financing negotiation of approximately $50 million and a pre-money valuation of $1 billion implies that investors have aggressive expectations for Backpack's future revenue scale, user penetration, and potential token value. A $1 billion pre-money valuation means the team hopes to anchor itself at the starting point of the "next tier-one trading platform" track, rather than an ordinary regional platform, reserving higher pricing space for subsequent IPOs or token issuances.
● Discrepancy in Polymarket's Calm Pricing: Unlike the strong narrative at the primary market negotiation table, Polymarket's contracts show that traders only give a 26% probability that Backpack's token will exceed $1 billion FDV on the first day. This difference means that when retail and professional speculators bet with their own funds, they are more inclined to view the "billion-dollar valuation" as a story to be validated rather than a nailed-down reality, maintaining a clear discount on the so-called "new FTX-level platform's" growth path.
● The Reflexive Game of Real Money Against Story Premium: Primary market investors often bet on "stories that can be told to the secondary market in the future," while the secondary market's lukewarm response will inversely affect the primary negotiation leverage and terms. If the FDV struggles to approach $1 billion after the token is listed, early equity or token investors' psychological expectations will be forced to adjust downward, making subsequent rounds of financing more difficult, thereby compressing the platform's expansion resources and causing fundamental growth to lag behind the story curve. This reflexive structure will amplify the tear between valuation and reality.
From the Ruins of FTX to SEC's Softening: Regulatory Warmth Cannot Replace Credit Endorsement
● Approval of Clearing Institutions and Signals of Technical Neutrality: At the macro regulatory level, the U.S. SEC has approved the registration of two new clearing institutions, while gradually shifting its public statements towards a "technically neutral" regulatory framework. This means that traditional financial infrastructure is opening interfaces for crypto-related assets, increasing compliance options for clearing, custody, and settlement layers, building more bridges between centralized trading platforms and the compliant financial world.
● Uyeda's Vision of a New Window for Crypto IPOs: SEC Commissioner Uyeda recently mentioned at a forum that the shift in regulatory attitude could open a new window for crypto companies' IPOs, making the compliance path no longer limited to "offshore registration + token issuance." For platforms like Backpack, the theoretical path imagination has been broadened: it can consider future public market financing beyond token issuance, using traditional equity market valuations to hedge against token price volatility.
● Regulatory Improvements Cannot Erase Individual Historical Shadows: However, it is important to emphasize that macro-level regulatory easing will not automatically absolve a specific team's past. The ruins of FTX are still vivid, and even if Backpack utilizes more mature compliance tools and connects with regulated clearing institutions, it only reduces operational and counterparty risks, and cannot erase the cracks left in trust. Improvements in regulatory pathways can provide a "structural safety net," but cannot replace the need for a reassessment of team culture, governance methods, and historical responsibilities.
Fear Index 9 and ETH Plummet: Risk Premium Repriced by the Market
● Extreme Fear and Severe Volatility: The current fear index is only 9, in the "extreme fear" range, indicating that the overall risk appetite of market participants has been significantly compressed. ETH plummeted 43% in nine days before rebounding to about $2,100; this short-term volatility makes funds more inclined to contract their positions, prioritizing defense of high liquidity and clearer fundamental mainstream assets, naturally requiring significantly higher risk compensation from emerging trading platforms that have yet to prove their risk resilience.
● Elevation of Valuation Discounts and Risk Compensation: In a high-volatility and low-sentiment environment, investors are more sensitive to the risk perception of trading platforms as "systemically critical nodes." Even if Backpack throws out the $1 billion pre-money valuation chip, the market will reflect the risk premium by demanding stricter terms, longer lock-up periods, or lower token listing valuations. In other words, the higher the primary valuation label, the stronger the "discounting force" in this cycle.
● On-Chain Macro Environment and Cautious Funds: On the on-chain data level, Ethereum still maintains a leading position in TVL, but some L2 solutions' narratives are being questioned, causing the "no-risk" technology expansion path to be re-examined. Meanwhile, Ethereum's annual inflation rate is about 0.8%, with its monetary attributes becoming milder, making it relatively more attractive as risk aversion rises. In such a macro environment, funds are more inclined to stay with time-tested core assets, maintaining a high degree of caution towards the "new exchange + new token" combination that carries significant narrative components.
Valuation Anchoring or Story Overdraft: Backpack's Next Test
● Difficult Balance Amid Three Forces: Overall, Backpack stands at the intersection of high pre-valuation expectations, low confidence pricing in the secondary market, and a mildly improving regulatory wind. The ambition of negotiating a $1 billion pre-money valuation and the gap with Polymarket's 26% probability bet expose the tension between story narratives and funding pricing; while the SEC and other regulatory agencies' shift towards technical neutrality provides a clearer blueprint for "compliant trading platforms" at the macro level, it does not directly repair the trust cracks at the individual team level.
● Core Validation Points Focused on Business and Token Design: In the next phase, whether Backpack's valuation can be seen as "anchoring future cash flows and market share," rather than "overdrafting imagination," will revolve around several quantifiable key nodes: token issuance methods and rhythms, actual fee rates and incentive structures, and the execution strength and oversight mechanisms of compliant operations. These aspects will determine whether the platform can generate a sustainable, auditable revenue curve and whether the token can support a $1 billion-level FDV after listing.
● The Only Path Beyond the "Former FTX Halo": In the extremely cold cycle indicated by the fear index of 9, the market is no longer willing to pay extra premiums for "halo backgrounds." If Backpack wants to outperform the overall discount environment, it must not only prove that it will not become the "next FTX," but also provide real performance, publicly transparent financial and on-chain data, and strict risk control and governance disclosures, allowing investors to see evidence of a break from the old era. When the "former FTX team" is no longer a marketing slogan but is redefined as "those who know the risk black box but choose to open the box," the $1 billion valuation may transition from a story to a pricing foundation.
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