Bonk launches BONK Trust: How many tokens can it "lock"? What is its appeal to users outside the community?
A maximum of 49.3 million dollars in BONK can be locked, accounting for 3% of the total supply. "Turning from virtual to real" may become a necessary path.
Author: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily
In 2023, the most outstanding Meme token on Solana, besides WIF, is BONK. The main upward trend of the token began in early November 2023, rising from a market value of $20 million to $1.5 billion by mid-December, an increase of 75 times.
Unlike other tokens, BONK does not solely rely on "community building" for its rise, but has begun to "move from virtual to real". In August 2023, Bonk launched a Telegram trading bot on the Solana network, which burns BONK tokens by charging bot service fees, having burned over $10 million worth of BONK to date.
Today, Bonk announced the launch of the BONK ETP "Osprey BONK Trust" , which will accept the first batch of qualified investors, aiming to provide a simple and cost-effective way for qualified investors (wealthy individuals) to acquire BONK. Odaily will analyze it in this article.
Interpretation of Osprey BONK Trust
Bonk stated on the product introduction page that the Osprey BONK Trust aims to provide a simple and secure investment in BONK, becoming a way for "qualified investors" to invest in BONK without needing a wallet or private keys.
How many tokens are locked?
The Osprey BONK Trust has a relatively strict definition for qualified investors, including:
Individual annual income must exceed $200,000 (or a combined annual income with a spouse exceeding $300,000), net worth over $1 million;
Investment professionals, such as licensed associates of brokerage firms or investment advisors;
Entities must have $5 million in liquid assets, or all beneficial owners must be qualified investors.
Another key element in the Osprey BONK Trust terms is that the trust will temporarily not provide BONK redemptions, and investors can only sell shares on the secondary market in the near term. In summary, from the token's perspective, the purpose of this trust is to attract high-quality external funds to purchase BONK and "lock" the tokens in the trust.
So according to the current terms, how many BONK tokens can the Osprey BONK Trust lock at most?
The terms state that each trust share represents 216,999.02 BONK, with an initial outstanding share count of 9,792,000, meaning that a maximum of 216,999.02 × 9,792,000 = 2.12 trillion BONK will be deposited into the trust. Given that the current price of the token is 0.00002273 USDT, this amounts to locking $49.3 million, accounting for 3% of the total token supply, which is quite substantial.
Additionally, the trust will have a 2.5% management fee each year, but it has not been disclosed whether this will be used to burn BONK or in other ways to increase the token price.
Why is it attractive to external funds?
Some discussions in the comments section of the trust announcement and official replies reveal that the launch of the Osprey BONK Trust has other implications.
User A commented under the announcement asking, what advantages does purchasing BONK through the trust have compared to buying directly on-chain?
@R89 Capital replied, "Memecoin gains from tax-advantaged accounts." BONK's official account expressed agreement with this reply, and another BONK official, @oskyment, stated, "For example, being able to invest using your 401 K."
(Note: A 401 K is a retirement savings plan offered by U.S. employers that allows employees to save a portion of their paycheck before taxes are taken out.)
How to understand this? Simply put, purchasing the BONK trust through accounts like a 401 K allows investors to enjoy the benefits of tax deferral and pre-tax investment deductions, and may also provide certain potential tax advantages.
To elaborate, when investing through a 401 K account, investment income such as interest, dividends, and capital gains is not taxed immediately within the account until the user withdraws these funds upon retirement. Additionally, any other pre-tax income that the user invests in a 401 K account will be exempt from taxation.
However, the author believes that in the face of a 2.5% management fee, even with short-term tax benefits, establishing real attractiveness still requires stable and reliable token price performance to support it, which corresponds to Bonk's other core revenue business, BonkBot.
Risk Warning
It is worth noting that the Osprey BONK Trust states in its terms, "All funds have not been registered under the Securities Act, the Investment Company Act of 1940, or any state securities laws. Shares purchased directly from the fund are offered in a private placement under the Securities Act… and similar important exemptions under the laws of the state and region where they are located, issued and sold only to qualified investors.
Therefore, shares purchased from the fund are restricted and subject to significant limitations on transfer and resale. Potential investors purchasing directly from the fund should carefully consider these liquidity restrictions before making any investment decisions, including the fact that currently all funds do not offer redemption plans."
Moving from virtual to real
For most Memes, stripping away the shells of community, culture, and consensus, their essence remains a "funding scheme" and "attention economy," with all profits coming from later entrants. Especially for newly born Memes, the focus is more on creating events and attracting attention rather than considering practical development.
However, established Memes find it difficult to attract more incremental users, so some tokens have begun to "move from virtual to real." Floki launched the RWA product TokenFi (TOKEN), and Bonk launched BonkBot, which burns about $20,000 to $30,000 worth of BONK daily. Since its launch, it has burned $10.53 million worth of BONK, becoming an anchor to stabilize its price.
2024 is set to be a big year for Memes, with several Memes reaching market values of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. However, many once-popular Memes disappear from public view after losing funding attention. Therefore, the "moving from virtual to real" direction that BONK and FLOKI are pioneering may become one of the core choices for the new generation of Memes seeking long-term "survival" in the coming years.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
You may also like
Shiba Inu Dev Responds to Shibarium’s Integration of Chainlink’s CCIP for Seamless Connectivity
AAVE breaks above $200
Vancouver mayor proposes Bitcoin adoption as reserve asset
Ether ETFs gain $224.9M as Ethereum price rallies to $3,590