Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante denies cashing out of BP OTC, downplays FDV focus as outrage over ‘witch hunt’ Civil ban forces appeals, buybacks and rethinking of fairness.
Backpack founder and CEO Armani Ferrante has moved to quell the backlash over the exchange’s BP token launch, publicly denying that the team used an over-the-counter sale to extricate itself from its position and acknowledging that its aggressive anti-Civil process unfairly hurts parts of the community. In a detailed post about X, Ferrante wrote, “OTC. I can’t believe I have to say this. No, we are not OTCing our own tokens to cash out,” adding, “FUD is an opportunity to address misconceptions or identify mistakes and simply correct them.” (x.com) He stressed that past references to OTC were “solely intended to help serious buyers find the tokens” and not to ease the team’s allocation.
The comments follow days of outrage over BP’s token generation event on March 23, where airdrop rewards for users flagged as “witches” or suspected of having Sybil accounts were significantly reduced or canceled. Regarding X, Ferrante acknowledged that the vetting process had become overly rigorous, writing that the team’s approach to witchcraft cases was “too mechanical” and that “more complex cases are being re-evaluated.” AInvest analysis noted that Backpack opened a dissent channel and promised to restore up to 50% of their tokens to some affected users, alongside a buyback program aimed at stabilizing BP’s secondary market liquidity.
A storm brewed when BP began trading at a fully diluted valuation, matching the odds the market had already priced in and rapidly approaching the $200 million range. In February, O’Daly reported on Polymarket that there was a 98% chance that BP’s FDV would exceed $100 million, and an 87% chance that it would exceed $200 million the day after listing, suggesting a per-share price range of approximately $0.10 to $0.20. token. AInvest later estimated that BP had fallen to around $0.27, with FDV close to $200 million, as community confidence wavered.
However, Ferrante urged users to consider short-term market fluctuations. “FDV is not the central metric we are optimizing for,” he wrote, arguing instead that “long-term product-market fit, compliance, and transparency” will determine the backpack’s ultimate value. As reported by (KuCoin) ahead of TGE, Backpack touts a more “IPO-like” tokenomics structure tied to its underlying equity and compliance footprint, and operates in fewer than half of the world’s jurisdictions to stay within regulatory guardrails.
The current crisis comes at a troubling time for backpacks. Backpack has been touting itself as a post-FTX “safety first” exchange, with daily proof-of-reserve and a Solana-focused trading stack. In a previous crypto.news article, Ferrante said the exchange was an attempt to “do it the right way” after losing $14.5 million in the FTX collapse and seeing confidence in the industry evaporate. Now, the exchange’s promise of fairness is being tested by users blindsided by airdrop clawbacks and suspicious of signs of OTC activity.
Backpack’s response, including its public denial of the OTC cashout, its soft stance on the witchcraft case, and its renewed emphasis on long-term coordination, will determine whether BP’s launch will be remembered as a troubling but fixable development or as the moment when the project’s social capital reached its peak. In a market still scarred by exchange explosions and opaque token trading, how Ferrante delivers on these promises could be more important than BP’s next tick on the chart.
