A Fork Wants 6 Million BAL, and Balancer Holders Would Pay for It

A group of former Balancer contributors calling itself MAXYZ wants up to 6 million non-circulating BAL to seed a successor protocol. Balancer's own wind-down proposal would let holders burn BAL for a pro rata share of what's left in the treasury. Both sit on the forum today. Neither moves a single token yet.

Here's the arithmetic that should worry an old holder. A Sept. 18 unaudited on-chain measurement found $9,959,416 in non-BAL assets against 63,068,821 redeemable BAL, which works out to about $0.1579 per eligible token. Add 3 million redeemable BAL and the same pool splits to roughly $0.1507. Add all 6 million and it drops to about $0.1442, an 8.7% cut. Hold the asset value and eligibility rules fixed, and a bigger denominator means a smaller cheque for everyone already holding.

The wind-down plan pins redeemable supply to an opening snapshot proposed for the end of May 2027. BAL leaving an excluded address after that date wouldn't qualify. But MAXYZ's own fork treasury would be barred from redeeming against Balancer, and that restriction wouldn't necessarily follow tokens sold or transferred into other hands. So nobody actually knows how much of the grant ends up eligible.

What MAXYZ offers in return is conditional. If the fork holds a token generation event, 10% of its fully diluted supply goes to the Balancer treasury. That's a proposed right, not a payment. There's no realized fork value to add to today's redemption math. Marcus, who says he supports a fork decided separately, won't lead a continuation.

Then comes the governance problem. MAXYZ holds two of the seven Treasury Council seats, and both members would resign before any grant is sent, shifting the signing threshold from five of seven to four of five. Council signatures alone don't authorize a transfer. DAO-owned assets need governance approval, and authority over the Labs safes has to be established separately. That second part is genuinely unsettled.

On timing, pausable pools move to withdrawals only on Oct. 30, and partners requesting a v3 extension by Oct. 16 can keep pools live until Nov. 30. MAXYZ wants vaults running until the end of Q2 2027, at roughly $5,000 a month for API, hosting and maintenance, possibly covered by a $220,000 wind-down reserve that's only drawn if needed.

The wind-down vote runs Sept. 25 to 29, and until the audited snapshot lands, holders are pricing a shrinking denominator against an upside that exists only on paper.