WuBlockchain has republished a valuation note from @lasertheend that examines how much BP should be worth and how much future success the market may already be pricing into Backpack.
The piece opens with a favorable view of Backpack and founder Armani Ferrante after the collapse of FTX. The author says Ferrante kept building rather than leaving crypto, expanding from Backpack Wallet and Mad Lads into an exchange, lending, stocks and a card product. Still, the note draws a line between respecting a founder and deciding that a token is worth buying at any price.
BP’s key value driver is possible equity conversion after a listing
According to the note, BP’s biggest source of value is the potential to convert into equity after Backpack goes public. What the market may overlook, the author says, is the set of staking requirements behind that conversion, the size of the equity pool attached to BP, and the dilution that could happen before any listing event.
Under Backpack’s plan as described in the article, BP must be staked continuously for one year to qualify for equity conversion. That first step corresponds to 12.5% of the base equity pool. If holders continue staking for three years, the entitlement rises over time and can reach as high as 20%.
The denominator for the plan is fixed at 625 million BP allocated before the IPO. The note stresses an important distinction: what is fixed is the number of shares calculated from Backpack’s 2026 cap table, not a permanent ownership percentage. If Backpack raises more capital, expands its employee option pool or issues additional shares, the shares tied to BP would be diluted just like the holdings of other existing shareholders. In the author’s phrasing, the fixed part is the share count, not an ownership stake that never changes.
A $3 billion Backpack valuation implies about $0.84 of nominal value per BP
The note then works through a base case in which BP is staked for a cumulative three years. That means the initial one-year staking requirement is completed and staking continues for two more years. In that setup, the equity-pool entitlement is about 17.5%.
If Backpack ultimately reaches a $3 billion valuation, the nominal equity value attached to each BP would be:
- $3 billion × 17.5% ÷ 625 million BP = $0.84 per BP
The author immediately adds that this is only a future nominal value, not cash that can be sold today.
After dilution and discounting, the present value comes out at roughly $0.43 to $0.49
The article then applies another set of assumptions to translate that future value into a present one:
- 10% to 20% dilution before listing
- About three years before the related equity can actually be sold
- A 15% annual discount rate to reflect opportunity cost and liquidity risk
On those assumptions, the note estimates that each BP is worth about $0.43 to $0.49 in today’s terms.
Using BP’s current market price of $0.4533, the market is said to be implying a final Backpack valuation of roughly $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion. In other words, the current token price largely prices in a successful IPO outcome at around a $3 billion valuation.
Bullish is presented as the most useful public comparable
The author argues that Bullish is the most relevant comparable company available today. The article says Bullish is also pursuing a globally compliant route and is also trying to connect traditional finance with on-chain finance. Its market capitalization is given as about $3.5 billion to $3.6 billion.
Even so, the note says the gap in current operating scale is large. Backpack’s recent daily trading volume is put at about $130 million. Bullish, by contrast, posted average daily volume of about $1.974 billion in the second quarter of 2025, around 15 times Backpack’s level.
Bullish is already public, has disclosed financials, real revenue and a stronger balance sheet. The article also notes that Bullish owns CoinDesk’s data, index, media and events businesses. For that reason, the two companies are not treated as identical.
That leads to a narrower conclusion. A $3 billion valuation is not presented as a floor that Backpack deserves on current fundamentals. It is framed as a satisfactory valuation that might be justified only if the company executes on its product roadmap and expands users and trading activity in the future.
The Backpack thesis extends beyond the exchange
The note says Backpack’s upside is not limited to the exchange business. It points to the wallet, stocks and stock tokenization, lending, Multi-Margin, the card product, and a broader plan to bring crypto assets, stocks and dollar accounts into one financial system.
That is why the market is willing to assign Backpack a richer valuation expectation, the author writes. In the author’s view, those pieces could let Backpack become a crypto-native version of Interactive Brokers.
At the same time, the article says most of that remains a plan rather than current revenue. A broad product slate is not the same thing as already generating substantial income. What will ultimately determine Backpack’s valuation, the note says, is user scale, trading volume, client assets, revenue levels and real monetization ability. Vision can support a valuation, but operating metrics are what validate it.
Three valuation scenarios for BP
The author lays out three scenarios around BP’s current price:
- If Backpack ends up valued at $2 billion, BP looks expensive today.
- If Backpack reaches roughly $3 billion, BP looks broadly fair but without much margin of safety. In that case, investors are still taking on years of staking, dilution risk and liquidity risk, with returns that are not especially high.
- Only if Backpack can eventually reach a $4 billion to $5 billion valuation does BP offer more meaningful upside from current levels.
The note says the question is not whether Backpack can succeed in absolute terms. It is how much of that success has already been pulled forward into the current token price.
The closing view: respect the founder, but still do the math
The piece ends by saying the author believes in Armani and in Backpack’s ambition. But based on the company’s present scale, a public-market outcome at around a $3 billion valuation would already be a satisfying result, and BP’s current price appears to have largely discounted that result already.
The article closes with this line: “Respecting the founder doesn’t mean ignoring price. Believing in the vision doesn’t mean skipping the math.”
The author also says the exercise is only a rough estimate based on public information and is not investment advice. Actual outcomes may still depend on listing timing, financing dilution, plan terms, eligibility, taxes and market conditions. The note adds that many key data points are known only to the Backpack team and invites comments from Armani, the team or other researchers.
Original link: https://x.com/lasertheend/status/2080910033345548359