Private Markets · Ventures
Secondaries and Locked Tokens
Buying time from holders who need liquidity.
Early holders of a token or a venture position sometimes need liquidity before their lock-up ends: a fund reaching the end of its life, a team member leaving, a treasury with obligations. Selling a locked position to a buyer prepared to wait is a legitimate transaction that provides that liquidity. It is also a transaction with more ways to fail than an ordinary purchase.
Pricing
A locked position is priced from the liquid market for the unlocked asset, less a discount for the time to unlock, the expected supply arriving at the same time, the inability to hedge or exit in the interim, and the risk that the transfer is not honoured. The discount is the price of the seller’s liquidity and the buyer’s patience. It is derived, not negotiated from a headline.
Title and consent
The seller must actually own what it is selling, and the issuer must be willing to recognize the transfer. Many token agreements restrict transfer without issuer consent; many vesting contracts are bound to a specific wallet. Wesvel confirms title in the original documents, obtains the issuer’s consent or a re-papering of the allocation, and does not rely on private side arrangements that the issuer has not acknowledged.
Transfer mechanics
Where the vesting contract permits reassignment, the allocation is moved on-chain to the buyer’s custody wallet and the change is visible. Where it does not, the position is transferred by assignment of the underlying agreement, with the issuer party to the assignment. Payment is made against confirmed transfer, through an escrow or atomic mechanism where available, so that neither side delivers without the other.
Why sellers come to Wesvel
A buyer that will hold to unlock, can price the position from real market data, settles cleanly and is known to the issuers in its themes is worth a smaller discount to a seller than an anonymous bid. That reputation is built one transaction at a time, and it is the source of much of the flow.
Practice
How Wesvel approaches it
- 01Price is derived from the liquid market, the vesting schedule and expected supply, with the discount recorded and reviewed.
- 02Title is confirmed in the original documents and the issuer’s consent to transfer is obtained in writing before any payment.
- 03Settlement is against confirmed transfer through escrow or atomic mechanisms wherever possible.
- 04Purchased positions enter the side pocket under the same valuation policy as primary allocations.
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