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Comment by loourr | Hacker News Reader

I can believe it. I think A16Z is also an investor in Coinbase.

Definitely seems like some insider dealing. Especially considering Earn.com seems like a very immature (bordering on useless) product.

Also another example of a startup having more money then they know what to do with and not returning it to shareholders.

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We don't know how much they're paying at all though. If they're paying $10 million is that too much?

The domain is worth a chunk itself.

That's a good point. I'm assuming it's "too much" since 21 raised 100M previously but they're likely having a "down round".

Insider trading only applies to publicly traded companies.

I said insider dealing. I just meant that it's an indication of sketchiness.

And I'm not actually sure that's true (though I did before googling it just now):

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e24dc4ab-2a77...

https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersinsiderhtm.html

It's not technically insider trading but the managers of the companies (by way of the Board of Directors) have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Undertaking a bad merger to bail out a different company from one of your investors could be construed as a breach of that duty. Of course, it would take a long court case to determine fault / damages, so it's unlikely to happen, but there are some safeguards to prevent stuff like this (if that is what happened.. which who knows... ).

It is called soft landing/ aqui-hire in the VC world... that’s why you need to be part of incubators, etc...

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