For those who are wondering what the future of BRD looks like, according to a blog published on BRD.com following their acquisition,
"As part of the migration process, the BRD wallet app will undergo reductions in functionality over time as the team focuses on strengthening the Coinbase Wallet product. However, the open source wallet will remain forever as a community supported project on Github."
Source: https://brd.com/brd-joins-coinbase
Besides that, when Coinbase acquired BRD, they took on the liability of BRD token as well. BRD ran an ICO back between December 15th-23rd of 2017 where 900 BRD was sold per 1 ETH ($720 ETH price at the time) meaning BRD was solicited to investors at roughly 80 cents USD per token. 32% of the supply went to administration costs and 22% went to the BRD team. One could say Coinbase's acquisition may or could have temporarily or even concurrently interfered with BRD's potential path to decentralization. At the time of the ICO, a number of core BRD team members were also previous Coinbase employees. The way that Coinbase acquired BRD was also interesting, since they acquired BRD for an 'undisclosed' amount as if they were a private company (though we know that's controversial since it is linked to a token of which funded all or most of their operations). At the time of acquisition it is more safe to say that BRD was a security more than it was a commodity or currency. What I'm eluding to here is, why would Coinbase want to take on such potential legal burden as well as the burden of taking on potentially disgruntled investors based on the fact that 99.99% of all BRD holders today (28k holders per Etherscan) are in the negative on their investment? Not often do you see Coinbase acquire a startup with a token attached to it. I'm of the belief that they likened to BRD enough to the extent where they felt it was perhaps their duty to help decentralize BRD further. At the time, BRD was using centralized market markers such as Changelly for their in-wallet swaps which is not regarded as decentralized based on popular belief since there is manual processing/trust involved in such swaps which can lead to increased counter party risk. The fact that the token also had a perk where if you owned enough of it, you could get a call from the CEO, almost as if it granted investors relations commonly seen in TradFi (aside from the token funding the majority of their operations as well as no form of profit sharing per the partnerships with Changelly, etc. are all interesting as well. I'm of the belief that Coinbase may issue grants perhaps to help BRD reach future goals which based on the announcement obviously involves remaining open source. I wouldn't be surprised if they created a decentralized Bitcoin exchange to compete with Square and made BRD stand for Bitcoin Research Development. Whatever the future holds specifically, I would think there would be a dramatic transformation of the BRD wallet which explains why they needed to perform a migration. Never the less, I think it was a pretty brave move by Coinbase regardless of which direction the acquisition goes in, good or bad. Maybe it's Coinbase willing to lead by example by showing that a token of which may be deemed a security can be brought to a point of decentralization where it can no longer be deemed as such.
Something else that's interesting is SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce's Safe Harbor proposal that grants three (3) years for a token to become decentralized. Though it is just a proposal, target individuals may still take it as guidance in the interim as emerging markets sometimes take a while to received proper clarity. Under the exemption rule of the proposal it states:
"Exemption. Except as expressly provided in paragraph (d) of this section, the Securities Act of 1933 does not apply to any offer, sale, or transaction involving a Token if the following conditions are satisfied by the Initial Development Team, as defined herein.
(1) The Initial Development Team intends for the network on which the Token functions to reach Network Maturity within three years of the date of the first sale of Tokens;
(2) Disclosures required under paragraph (b) of this section must be made available on a freely accessible public website.
(3) The Token must be offered and sold for the purpose of facilitating access to, participation on, or the development of the network.
(4) The Initial Development Team files a notice of reliance in accordance with paragraph (c) of this section.
(5) An exit report is filed in accordance with paragraph (f) of this section.
1) Aside from this, how much activity have you all seen on Github?
2) Could Coinbase reallocating resources from BRD core contributors for a lengthened period of time place BRD in the category of a security if nothing open source exists out in the wild? Not even governance? Announcements? Roadmaps? I think this is what led to the Binance delisting. It's like, imagine me acquiring Uniswap, the app goes offline, I redirect development towards the development of my own DEX, Uniswap token loses 99% of it's utility. Half a year without announcements, would Uniswap token be more of a security in such an event?
3) Assuming announcements may come shortly from the community/core contributors.
