Personally, I don't see what the hubbub is about. A 409a is a standard instrument used to price options, a standard approach to a 409A valuation is the base the value of a company on its comparables, including public comparables.

If I were conducting this valuation, I haven't done this myself, but I most definitely read our 409A valuations closely. I'd imagine that the outside firm hired to conduct the analysis on Fintech would use data like:

BLOCK (down 49% in last 6 months)

PAYPAL (down 60% in last 6 months)

COINBASE (down 75% in last 6 months)

INTUIT (down 30% in last 6 months)

VISA (down 5% in last 6 months)

SHOPIFY (down 70% in last 6 months)

Everyone at these fintechs, has seen the valuation of their company drop significantly (with the exceptions of VISA in the last 6 months. It's possible that stripe's performance is closer to VISA than to SHOPIFY, but only dropping 30% is likely pretty generous given the broader market.

Anyone with options at any of these public companies is dealing with the same challenges.