Basis, Backed with $133 Million, Shuts Down and Returns Money to Investors

Basis, the most well-funded stablecoin startup in crypto at the time, announced it was shutting down and returning nearly all of its $133 million in funding to investors. The company was founded by TJHSST alum Nader Al-Naji along with Princeton classmates Lawrence Diao and Josh Chen.

The shutdown was driven by U.S. securities regulations. Basis's algorithmic stablecoin model relied on "bond tokens" and "share tokens" that regulators determined would likely be classified as unregistered securities. The investor roster included Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, GV (Google Ventures), Lightspeed Venture Partners, and former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh.

As Al-Naji wrote: "Although this isn't the outcome any of us wanted, we knew going into this that we were fundamentally making a binary bet on a favorable regulatory landscape."