XStocks – Behind the Wave of Stock Tokenize Is a Not-So-Transparent History

In the context of exchanges like Robinhood, Kraken, and Bybit announcing the implementation of US stock tokenization features, while large ecosystems like Chainlink and Jupiter also declare support for tokenized stocks of Apple, Tesla, and NVIDIA, the concept of "breaking barriers between traditional and crypto markets" suddenly becomes popular in the community. Notably, crypto exchanges like Kraken and Bybit have chosen the stock tokenization platform xStocks based on the infrastructure of Solana, while Robinhood uses Arbitrum as the token issuance chain. However, when excitement is high, the market is "doused with cold water" by worrying information: According to LinkedIn data, all three co-founders of the Israeli company Backed Finance - the entity behind xStocks - including Adam Levi Ph.D., Yehonatan Goldman, and Roberto Klein were previously senior personnel at DAOstack, a project that went bankrupt. Specifically, Adam Levi is a co-founder and "face of the project", Yehonatan Goldman was formerly COO of DAOstack, while Roberto Klein was responsible for legal and compliance. According to the ICO Drops platform, DAOstack raised around 30 million USD from late 2017 to May 2018 but ceased operations due to capital depletion by the end of 2022. The project was accused of performing a "soft Rug Pull" - silently withdrawing funds without publicly abandoning the project. A famous crypto KOL @cryptobraveHQ noted that DAOstack issued the GEN token in 2019 and let the token "free fall" after the 2021 bull run. "They didn't even bother to litigate or announce - they let the token go to 0 very indifferently," he shared. [The rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach, maintaining technical crypto terminology and preserving the original structure and meaning.]