Former Balancer Contributors Seek 6M BAL for Fork

A group of former Balancer contributors calling itself MAXYZ has asked for up to 6 million non-circulating BAL tokens to seed a proposed successor protocol. The proposal was posted Sept. 20 and expanded in a Sept. 23 FAQ. MAXYZ identifies about 3.5 million BAL in the DAO treasury, 1.6 million in a Balancer Labs fundraise safe and 928,000 in a Labs team safe as the sources for the request. The group proposes taking half the grant immediately and the remainder, up to the 6 million cap, after tetuBAL holders are paid because those claims may draw on the same non-circulating supply.

Balancer’s wind-down plan would let BAL holders burn tokens for a pro rata share of the DAO’s remaining assets, with eligibility fixed at an opening snapshot currently proposed for the end of May 2027. An unaudited on-chain measurement referenced in the plan, taken Sept. 18, estimated about $9.96 million in non-BAL assets available for distribution against 63,068,821 redeemable BAL, or about $0.1579 per eligible BAL. Using that asset figure, adding 3 million more redeemable BAL would lower the illustration to about $0.1507 per token; if all 6 million became eligible, the figure would fall to roughly $0.1442 per token, about 8.7% below the original illustration. Those figures are scenarios for illustration; the audited opening snapshot and final eligibility rules will determine actual outcomes.

MAXYZ proposes a contingent payment to the Balancer treasury tied to the fork’s future liquidity events: if the fork has a token generation event or other exit event, “10% of its fully diluted token supply or equivalent value” would be allocated to the Balancer treasury. That proposed allocation is conditional and carries no realized value today. MAXYZ also says the fork’s own treasury would be barred from redeeming against Balancer’s treasury, though that restriction would not automatically apply if tokens are sold or transferred to other holders.

The two plans differ on pool operations and timing. Under an amended wind-down plan from Balancer lead Marcus, pausable pools would switch to withdrawals-only on Oct. 30, with partners able to request extensions by Oct. 16 to keep v3 pools live until Nov. 30. MAXYZ proposes keeping vaults and pools unpaused until the end of the second quarter of 2027 unless an emergency requires action, citing the needs of projects that use Balancer pool designs and require time to migrate liquidity. MAXYZ estimates roughly $5,000 a month for API, hosting and maintenance to keep pools running and says continuing revenue or a proposed $220,000 wind-down reserve could cover that cost; those estimates and funding sources are not approved operating plans.

Several governance and legal questions remain unresolved. The forum texts do not establish who may authorize transfers from the two Balancer Labs safes identified in the proposal. MAXYZ seeks a perpetual, nonexclusive license to IP owned or controlled by Balancer entities, upgrading to an exclusive assignment of an entity’s interest if it dissolves; the FAQ says the request concerns the codebase rather than trademarks. The wind-down plan notes that transfers of DAO-owned code, licenses and deployments would each need a separate Snapshot vote after ownership and entity boundaries are clarified.

MAXYZ has proposed changing the Treasury Council by having two MAXYZ members resign before any grant is sent, which would change the signing threshold from five of seven to four of five. The wind-down plan states Council members oversee and sign treasury actions but do not have standing authority to alter the holder distribution on their own; DAO-owned transfers require governance approval and entity assets require separate authority.

The wind-down plan was scheduled for a Sept. 25–29 vote. Marcus wrote he “supports a fork decided separately but will not lead a continuation.” Until governance votes, the audited snapshot and any transfers are finalized, Balancer holders’ measurable claim remains a share of a changing treasury and any future stake in a fork is conditional.