Across Protocol, the Ethereum-based cross-chain bridge backed by venture firm Paradigm, published a preliminary governance proposal on March 11 exploring a fundamental restructuring of the project. The proposal comes against a backdrop of significant venture backing: Paradigm led a $41 million token round in 2024, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and Multicoin Capital, bringing the project's total capital raised to $51 million. Under the proposal, ACX token holders would be given the option to exchange their tokens for equity in a private company through which the project would be reconstituted. The specific mechanics of any such transition, including the future of the current decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure, could not be independently verified at the time of publication.

The proposal is framed as a "temp check," a non-binding sentiment poll used in DAO governance to gauge community interest before any formal vote is scheduled. It carries no immediate legal or on-chain effect. The team behind Across operates through Risk Labs, a Cayman Islands-registered foundation company co-founded by Hart Lambur. Risk Labs also operates UMA Protocol, whose optimistic oracle system provides the settlement layer for Across bridge transactions.

ACX Token Down 98%, Protocol Still Dominant

ACX currently trades at roughly $0.033, a decline of approximately 98% from its all-time high, which research sources place in a range of approximately $1.69 to $1.74, reached on December 6, 2024. The token's market capitalization sits at approximately $23 to $24 million, with 24-hour trading volume between $1.3 million and $1.8 million. Despite the token's poor price performance, the underlying protocol remains a significant player in the cross-chain bridge market. Across has processed more than $28 billion in cumulative bridge volume since launch without a single reported exploit, and the protocol claims roughly 54% of daily active bridge users among competing protocols, a figure drawn from self-reported data on the project's official website. The protocol currently supports transfers across 19 or more chains, typically completing transactions in under one minute.

Across Protocol also co-developed ERC-7683 with Uniswap Labs, an intent-based interoperability standard that has been adopted by more than 50 protocols including Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon. The Ethereum Foundation's Open Intents Framework builds on this standard, reflecting the protocol's influence across the broader ecosystem and underscoring why the current restructuring carries stakes well beyond its token price.

A Proposal With Contested History

The equity conversion proposal does not arrive in a vacuum. In June 2025, pseudonymous on-chain analyst Ogle, founder of Glue, publicly alleged that Across co-founders had used coordinated governance votes to move approximately $23 million worth of ACX tokens from the DAO treasury to Risk Labs. Ogle pointed to two governance proposals: one in October 2023 allocating 100 million tokens for Across v3 development, and a second in October 2024 granting 50 million tokens as retroactive funding. Ogle stated that a wallet funding roughly 14% of votes, which he linked to Lambur, had been decisive in reaching quorum on at least one proposal.

"It seems the Across/Risk co-founders and insiders orchestrated governance proposals that let them secretly subvert the 'democratic' process of the DAO," Ogle wrote at the time.

Lambur rejected the allegations, describing the token grants as standard DAO practice and pointing to Risk Labs' nonprofit structure. "Risk Labs was granted ACX tokens from the DAO to build the Across protocol. This is standard practice for DAOs," he said. Lambur also stated that "Risk Labs is a Cayman-based nonprofit with no shareholders."

ACX fell 10% following the allegations. Cointelegraph reported it was unable to verify Risk Labs' nonprofit status through official Cayman registries.

Why Retail Holders in Emerging Markets Face the Steeper Risk

For ACX holders in India, Pakistan, and Nigeria, the equity conversion raises practical concerns that go beyond governance philosophy. According to Chainalysis's 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, India ranks first globally for grassroots crypto adoption, Pakistan third, and Nigeria sixth. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded more than $205 billion in on-chain volume between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52% year-on-year increase, with Nigeria alone accounting for $92.1 billion of that total.

Unlike tokens traded on exchanges such as Binance or KuCoin, private company shares are illiquid assets. They cannot be easily sold, transferred, or used as collateral. For holders in Lagos, Karachi, or Mumbai who rely on the liquidity that crypto assets provide, the exchange would represent a meaningful downgrade in their financial flexibility.

There is a further complication. If the new company is incorporated in a jurisdiction such as Delaware or the Cayman Islands, local securities law may restrict equity ownership to accredited investors, typically defined by income or net worth thresholds that most retail holders in the Global South would not meet. Those holders could find themselves unable to participate in the conversion at all, left holding tokens in a protocol that may have fundamentally changed its ownership structure around them.

There is also a governance dimension that deserves attention. Retail token holders in South Asia and Africa who hold small quantities of ACX are statistically unlikely to have had meaningful governance influence to begin with. The documented ability of a single wallet funding roughly 14% of votes to swing quorum illustrates how concentrated governance power has been in practice. An equity conversion would eliminate even the theoretical governance rights currently held by these small-quantity holders, concentrating decision-making further within a private corporate structure.

Cross-chain bridges are not peripheral products in these markets. Nigeria receives approximately $21 billion in annual remittance inflows, with stablecoins increasingly routing those flows. Pakistan has seen crypto remittances grow 18.7% via Binance P2P. Stablecoins account for 43% of Sub-Saharan Africa's total crypto transaction volume (Chainalysis, 2025), and infrastructure like Across underpins how those funds move between chains and protocols. The broader cross-chain bridge market is projected to grow from $135 million in 2025 to $430 million by 2032 at a compound annual growth rate of 16.7%, with emerging markets driving a significant share of that expansion (IntelMarketResearch).

Broader Trend: DeFi Teams Reconsidering the DAO Model

Across is not alone in reassessing its governance architecture. In February 2026, Aave Labs proposed routing all protocol revenue from Aave-branded products directly to the Aave DAO treasury. That preliminary temperature check, known as the "Aave Will Win" proposal, recorded 52.58% support in its community poll, and the Aave Chan Initiative, a major governance group, subsequently announced its shutdown amid the resulting rift. The pattern points to mounting friction between the foundations and venture-backed teams that build DeFi protocols and the token holder communities that nominally govern them.

The Across temp check will need to clear a formal governance vote before any restructuring takes place. Key details, including the exchange ratio, eligibility criteria, and the identity of the proposed private entity, had not been publicly confirmed at the time of publication. Readers can monitor the proposal directly at forum.across.to. Verse Press has reached out to Risk Labs for comment and will update this article when a response is received.

Disclosure: The primary source report on this proposal, published by The Block on March 11, 2026, was behind a paywall and could not be independently accessed by the research team at the time of publication. Material details available in that report could not be verified for this article.