Chapter 03 of 10
The Offering · Vol. 02 No. 01
The Desk · 03
September 2026 · London
The issuer’s operating map: twelve fields before a public sentence · Field 03–04
Product evidence and token status: two clocks, not one
A token design is not a product. A product is not an offering.
Product evidence is a URL, an explorer, a repo that is not a placeholder, a pilot with a named counterparty. A deck is not evidence of a product. Concept-only teams sometimes have a future. They do not have a fourteen-day launch OS worth buying from us, and they do not have an offering that can be described as anything other than a hope. The screen prefers live, testnet or pilot. Kick-off enforces it.
Token status is a separate field: none, designed, live, or the team is already raising. “Designed” means there is a specification a technician and a lawyer can both read. It does not mean a pie chart. “Live” means units exist on a ledger. It does not mean they have been offered. Raising means someone is already being asked for value. Raising without a pathway on file is not a Sprint. It is an incident.
What we ask to see
Product and token, separated
- 01Product URL that a stranger can use or inspect without a sales call.
- 02What a user can do today, in one paragraph without adjectives.
- 03Whether any token is required to use the product today. If yes, how they obtain it without an offering story.
- 04Whether any token is planned. If yes, what a holder receives, in words a holder would recognise.
- 05Whether any sale, option, warrant, SAFT, simple agreement, or side letter already exists.
- 06Whether any insider allocation has already occurred, and on what paper.
Teams hate the separation because the market taught them that the token is the product. Sometimes, under some facts, a token is the product. Counsel can say so. Until then, write two paragraphs. The product paragraph should survive the deletion of the token. If it does not, you are not launching software. You are launching an instrument and calling it a roadmap. That can be a lawful project. It is a different project. Name it.