What a success fee is standing next to

A percentage of raise is not “skin in the game.” It is compensation tied to capital formation. Firms that lawfully take that compensation are in a different business: arranging, placing, dealing, sometimes advising. They have licences, or they should. They take investor funds, or they introduce those who do. They live in a supervisory world we have chosen not to enter.

Token compensation has a sibling problem. It asks us to be paid in the object whose public story we are being hired to control. It also asks us to take a speculative instrument in lieu of a fee for work that is real on Tuesday. Until counsel confirms a structure that is lawful for us and for the issuer, the answer is no. No is cheaper than a clever exception.

There is a third cousin: equity in the issuer, payable against a listing. Same shape. We are not your banker. We will not be paid like one.

Founders sometimes say, “but everyone in crypto does it.” Everyone in crypto also shipped folklore last cycle. We are building a house that can sit in London, publish disclosures, and still be the same firm on a bad Thursday. The rate card is part of that.