Meme Insider
Laura Shin just lit up crypto Twitter with a tweet that’s pure gasoline on an already raging fire.
The latest Bits + Bips episode features Jack Kubinec — the journalist who actually broke the story — walking through documents that show Brevan Howard’s Nova Digital fund got something basically unheard of in crypto: a full $25 million refund right that lasts up to one year after Berachain’s token launch.
Yes, you read that right. Post-TGE escape hatch.
While every retail degen and other VC that piled in is fully exposed to the downside (BERA is currently sitting ~66% off its highs), Brevan’s fund had a “heads I win big, tails I get my money back” clause baked into the deal.
Four separate crypto lawyers told Unchained this is extraordinarily rare. Normally refund rights die the moment the token goes live. Once the TGE happens, everyone is supposed to be in the same boat.
But not Nova Digital.
The side letter is public now. You can read it yourself:
Smokey The Bera pushed back hard, calling the reporting “inaccurate and incomplete” and saying the clause was only there in case Berachain never launched (a compliance requirement for Nova’s liquid-only strategy) and that Brevan actually has additional commercial commitments like providing liquidity.
Fair point — but the actual document explicitly says the refund window runs until one year after TGE, not one year after the investment if no TGE occurs.
And multiple Series B investors confirmed to Unchained they were never told Nova got this sweetheart term. That alone raises serious MFN (most-favored-nation) questions — if one investor gets a better deal, a bunch of others might legally be entitled to it too.
Why this hits different for the meme crowd
Berachain didn’t come from white-paper nerds in a basement. It literally started as Bong Bears NFTs — one of the most degen, meme-first, culture-rich projects in the entire space.
The whole chain was built for memes: Proof-of-Liquidity, honey jars, bear names, endless shitcoin casinos, and a community that used to pack X Spaces with hundreds of people yelling about bears.
Now? Spaces are lucky to break 30 listeners. Major apps have shut down or migrated. Net outflows in 2025 are north of $367 million. BERA is scraping all-time lows.
And on top of all that, the meme community finds out a TradFi giant basically got a “no-risk” ticket while everyone else is bleeding.
That’s the kind of thing that turns “to the moon” energy into “who even asked these suits here” energy real fast.
Watch the full breakdown
If you want the unfiltered version straight from the guy who got the docs and fought with the Berachain team for a month trying to get answers, watch this episode.
Bits + Bips: Why Berachain Gave Brevan Howard a Secret $25M Escape Hatch
Jack doesn’t pull punches, and the hosts press him on every angle — MFNs, whether Brevan has already asked for the money back, what this means for transparency in crypto fundraising, the works.
Love it or hate it, this is the kind of dealmaking that shows the two-tier system in this space is alive and well.
Retail and smaller VCs hold the bag.
The big dogs get golden parachutes.
Berachain revenge arc loading… or is the damage already done?
