Based on reporting by Nancy at PANews, published March 12, 2026, at 15:58 UTC+8. The restructuring described below was a proposal, not a completed transition.
Across Protocol’s proposed move from a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to a privately held U.S. company raises a practical question for DeFi infrastructure: when commercial relationships require enforceable contracts, does token-based governance help or hinder the business?
A temperature-check proposal published on March 11 outlined a transition to a U.S. C corporation, with ACX holders offered either equity participation or a USDC exit. PANews characterized the proposed restructuring as a first in crypto. Its significance, however, rests on the specific problem Across described: a mismatch between its DAO structure and the requirements of institutional payments partnerships.
What AcrossCo would take over
Under the proposal, a new entity, AcrossCo, would become the operating company behind Across Protocol. It would receive all protocol intellectual property and take responsibility for development, partnerships and commercialization.
At the time of the report, Across had operated for four years, raised approximately $51 million across two funding rounds, and processed more than $58 billion in cumulative cross-chain volume. Its investors included Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto, Multicoin Capital and Hack VC.
The proposal would therefore change the organizational structure of an established protocol, rather than create a company around an untested product. A C corporation is a conventional structure for startups seeking venture or institutional financing and potentially an acquisition or public listing. That does not, by itself, establish whether the restructuring would improve Across’s commercial results.
The two options for ACX holders
The proposed transition would use an ACX-for-equity exchange or a token buyout:
- Equity exchange: Holders could exchange ACX for AcrossCo equity at a stated 1:1 ratio. Those holding more than 5 million ACX could participate directly; smaller holders would participate through a special-purpose vehicle, or SPV, described as free of charge.
- USDC exit: Holders could redeem ACX at $0.04375 per token, payable in USDC. The proposal described that price as a 25% premium to the preceding 30-day average market price. The redemption window would last six months and was expected to open within three months of approval.
The reported 1:1 exchange ratio should not be read as a complete description of the equity’s economic or legal rights; the supplied reporting does not establish those details.
The planned governance timetable was a community call on March 18, publication of the final proposal on March 26, and a Snapshot vote on April 2, 2026.
The commercial argument: an entity that can sign contracts
Across co-founder Hart Lambur argued that the token and DAO structure had materially constrained the protocol’s ability to secure partnerships and integrations as its institutional and enterprise relationships expanded.
Although Across offers consumer-facing products, Lambur described its underlying business as payments infrastructure. According to his account, Across had signed contracts with major crypto projects over several years, but could not enter those agreements directly because it lacked a legal entity. Instead, agreements had to go through Risk Labs Foundation.
Lambur said this intermediary arrangement became an obstacle when dealing with more traditional financial institutions. He also argued that off-chain contracts would become increasingly important as third parties paid transaction fees on users’ behalf.
The intended benefit of AcrossCo was therefore concrete: a legal counterparty able to enter enforceable contracts, negotiate revenue arrangements and support commercial relationships. Whether that change would deliver greater stakeholder value remained an expectation, not a demonstrated outcome.
Two proposed business priorities
If the restructuring passed, Lambur said Across would focus on two areas.
Stablecoin bridging. Lambur described Across’s cross-chain intent architecture as the only viable approach to unifying activity across numerous layer-2 networks, sidechains and alternative layer-1 chains. That is his assessment, rather than an independently established technical conclusion. He expected free cross-chain transfers to become standard for stablecoins by the end of 2026. In addition to Hyperliquid, he said Across had two undisclosed partnerships intended to enable free transfers for users.
AI-agent payments. The second priority would allow users to state their desired outcomes and have a competing network of solvers execute them, supporting automated and personalized services. The report presented this as a business direction, not evidence of a completed deployment or measured adoption.
Governance friction and the token valuation problem
PANews placed Across’s proposal within a wider debate over DAO accountability, concentrated voting power, low participation and slow decision-making. These concerns provide context, but do not establish that every DAO faces the same constraints.
The report also cited Aave founder Stani Kulechov’s criticism of existing DAO processes. Against a backdrop of governance turbulence at Aave, he argued that forum discussions, temperature checks and repeated votes could slow execution, while political alliances could favor “politicians” over builders. His proposed distinction was to reserve collective governance for matters such as major protocol changes and treasury strategy, while leaving execution to leadership.
For Across, token valuation was another stated concern. Lambur said he remained a token supporter and opposed high-fully-diluted-valuation, low-circulating-supply launches. He said Across had launched its token early at a very low valuation, but that macro conditions had changed. In his view, ACX was severely undervalued and receiving insufficient attention, leaving the disadvantages of having a token greater than the benefits.
The market reaction was sharp but did not erase the token’s historical losses. At the time of PANews’s report, CoinGecko showed ACX up 94.9% over 24 hours, yet still approximately 96.2% below its all-time high. On-chain analyst Ai Yi estimated that the largest ACX-holding address would still require a 5.66-fold price increase to break even. The article did not provide a detailed cost-basis methodology for that estimate.
PANews suggested that perceived arbitrage opportunities around the proposed exchange and buyout may have contributed to the rally. That was a possible explanation, not an established causal finding.
A change in ownership structure, not proof of a broader solution
The proposal drew competing reactions: some viewed it as a retreat from decentralization that could marginalize retail crypto holders; others regarded it as a pragmatic adjustment to DeFi’s commercial constraints. Traditional equity might offer a more stable financing and valuation framework, but that remained a possibility rather than a demonstrated result.
Lambur also said Across could consider tokenizing its equity later. The intended sequence was conventional equity first, with tokenization considered in a subsequent phase—not a committed tokenized-equity launch.
Across’s proposal thus separated two questions often bundled together: how a protocol operates, and how the organization developing and commercializing it is owned and governed. As of March 12, 2026, the proposal documented a planned answer to the second question. It did not yet demonstrate that replacing the DAO would resolve the protocol’s commercial or valuation challenges.