Samson Mesele

Our new investment thesis: You Can Just Program Biology by @matthewjmandel

we learned today that the SEC has agreed to dismiss its unregistered securities claims against Nova Labs. as a result, we can now resolve what might well be the shortest-lived SEC litigation on record. after suing us about three months ago in a bizarre last-minute politically-motivated move, the SEC has now changed course and agreed to dismiss with prejudice (as in, permanently dismissed and can never be re-opened) the claims it brought against us related to the sale of hotspots and discovery mapping   this is an unprecedented win, as we now have absolute certainty that we did not violate securities laws when we developed the @helium network and the $HNT, $IOT, and $MOBILE token framework that powers it. it’s also a massive win for crypto, because the SEC agrees the Hotspots that power the Helium infrastructure are not securities. and because these dismissals will be with prejudice, the SEC cannot bring these charges against us in the future putting this SEC matter behind us is a huge win for the entire @helium community, as well as other crypto projects which use hardware to build their networks. we expect the dismissal to be finalized within the next few days. a big thank you to the new leadership at the SEC including Paul Atkins, @HesterPeirce and @MarkUyedaUS for restoring sanity to the commission LFG!!!

There is a  growing legal debate over whether developers of decentralized technology can be held liable for the actions of third-party users. The recent decision in Risley v. Universal Navigation, Inc. (@Uniswap Labs) could shape how courts address user claims in the DeFi space. A new piece by DEF’s Spencer Peek (@peek_spencer) and Greg Marcus (@greglmarcus) discusses the substance of the Risley decision, and its impact on DeFi moving forward. defieducationfund.org/post/risley-v-…

Today we announced our Series C funding round with participation from existing investors @usv, @BatteryVentures, and new investor Neurone. Read more about the news and what it means for our global ambitions from founder @eliothorowitz. viam.com/post/series-c

In a matter of months or years, AI agents will be some of the best (if not *the* best) venture investors in the world. That's why we're excited to give a sneak peak of @ADINonline -- AI-powered venture capital. ADIN is a network of AI agents that are able to: * evaluate deals, performing superhuman diligence in a matter of minutes * predict the value of a company (with reasonably accuracy, without knowing the value beforehand) * democratically vote on whether to invest in a project * recommend an investment amount based on the DAO/fund's thesis, deployment schedule, size, stage focus, and risk appetite With ADIN, we’re aiming to push both DAOs and venture into an agentic future.

🦄 Another huge win - @Uniswap Labs just won the Second Circuit appeal for our class action "we agree... that it 'defies logic' that a drafter of a smart contract, a computer code, could be held liable under the Exchange Act for a third-party user's misuse of the platform"

The SEC (under the previous admin) tried to claim that Uniswap Labs operated an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency, and issued an unregistered security. Those claims have now been dropped. @Uniswap Labs is not a broker. The Uniswap Protocol is not an unregistered exchange or clearing agency or operated by Labs. UNI is not a security. They went after us despite having no clear legal basis, as part of a strategy of arbitrary enforcement to try to force DeFi into a regulatory framework that doesn’t fit—all while refusing to provide clear rules or a path to compliance. This investigation took over 3 years, forcing us to waste incredible amounts of time and millions of dollars. It also had a personal impact — federal investigations are violating and stressful to the point where there is a saying among lawyers that “the investigation IS the punishment.” That shouldn’t be the price of innovation in the US. This is a huge win, not just for Uniswap Labs but for DeFi as a whole. It reaffirms what we’ve said all along: that decentralized technology and self-custody are inherently different from the centralized, intermediated systems they aim to replace. Self-custodied funds, with self-executing code run on public blockchains, are a huge step forward in transparency for financial markets. Slapping regulations aimed at centralized, opaque TradFi markets on top of DeFi simply does not work. I’m grateful that the new SEC leadership is taking a more constructive approach, and I look forward to working with Congress and regulators to help create rules that actually make sense for DeFi – encouraging innovation, improving transparency and access to financial markets, and ensuring that this technology can thrive in the US, instead of being pushed offshore. The best days for DeFi are ahead 🦄