LayerZero acquisition of StarGate faces "interference": Wormhole raises price request to suspend voting.

LayerZero's acquisition proposal for StarGate is disrupted by its competitor Wormhole, which has submitted a higher bid and requested to pause the voting, intending to disrupt the acquisition. (Background: LayerZero announced a $127 million acquisition of StarGate, with STG and ZRO both pumping 25% and facing community criticism for centralization) (Supplementary background: LayerZero's key governance vote is coming: Should ZRO protocol fees be activated?) The proposal "LayerZero acquires StarGate," which has entered the formal voting process, suddenly changes. On August 21, Wormhole Foundation, LayerZero's direct competitor, publicly announced on X that LayerZero's approximately $110 million acquisition offer for StarGate underestimated the protocol's assets and growth, so Wormhole plans to submit a higher bid and requests to pause the current Snapshot vote for 5 business days to refine the bidding process and protect the interests of STG holders. Background: LayerZero initiated the acquisition The acquisition proposal from LayerZero for StarGate dates back to August 11. In the early hours of that day, the LayerZero Foundation released a draft in StarGate's governance forum proposing to acquire StarGate at a total price of $110 million. Specifically, the LayerZero Foundation proposed to exchange all circulating STG (, including STG in stake/vote status, at a ratio of 1 STG : 0.08634 ZRO based on a price of $0.1675 per STG ), which is slightly higher than the market price at that time ( and $1.94 per ZRO. After the acquisition, StarGate will be more deeply integrated into the LayerZero ecosystem, StarGate DAO will be dissolved, and all excess income generated by StarGate in the future will be used for reducing ZRO's circulating supply through a buyback program. After the proposal was announced, LayerZero and StarGate's official Twitter accounts frequently interacted, both discussing "cooperation and win-win"; as a result, both ZRO and STG saw significant pumps that day. However, upon closer inspection of the discussions in StarGate's governance forum, the vast majority of StarGate members opposed the acquisition proposal, believing that LayerZero's offer was too low. Early progress: Voting initiated, large investors exert pressure On August 18, the proposal officially started voting on Snapshot, where STG holders will collectively decide whether to accept the acquisition offer. Compared to the initial proposal, LayerZero did not raise the acquisition bid but claimed it would share 50% of StarGate's total revenue over the next six months with veSTG holders ), who are the users voting directly (. After the voting started, it quickly surpassed the minimum vote requirement, with support peaking at over 97% ). According to the rules, if it exceeds 70% at the end, it will pass (. LayerZero co-founder Bryan Pellegrino even proudly stated during a CounterParty podcast: "This is the most participated vote in StarGate's history." Such a lopsided voting trend is not surprising; although many StarGate community members oppose the offer, LayerZero and StarGate, as fully integrated back-end protocols and front-end products, are difficult to view as two independent entities. Furthermore, half of StarGate Foundation's board members are from LayerZero... Coupled with LayerZero and StarGate's interactive rhetoric, it is not hard to imagine that both parties' stakeholders control enough voting power; in other words, this is a vote "destined to pass, but needs a formality." Wormhole's ulterior motive: Even if it can't win, it still wants to annoy you Perhaps neither LayerZero nor StarGate expected Wormhole to intervene at such a critical moment. As of the time of writing, unlike the "harmonious situation" where both parties frequently interacted after LayerZero's acquisition proposal, StarGate's official Twitter has not released any related updates after Wormhole expressed its intention to acquire, and LayerZero only had co-founder Bryan seemingly respond with: "This is not going to happen." As of the time of writing, Wormhole has not submitted a formal bid, and the reason is quite amusing: Wormhole claims it needs more time to conduct due diligence on StarGate's valuation because they are not as familiar with StarGate as LayerZero, which occupies half of the latter's foundation board seats... Given the current situation, the subsequent developments of this event can be summarized into four possibilities, and in any case, Wormhole will be pleased. The first scenario is that StarGate pauses the voting, leading to bidding between Wormhole and LayerZero, ultimately assuming Wormhole wins. In this case, Wormhole will directly take away the core product of its biggest competitor, thus capturing more market share. The second scenario assumes that LayerZero wins the bidding, or that LayerZero unilaterally raises its bid and advances the proposal; in this case, LayerZero will pay more money to STG holders, while Wormhole can watch its competitor deplete more without spending a dime. The third scenario is that StarGate ignores Wormhole's bid on the grounds that the process has already started; the proposal will continue to advance in its original state ), and assuming LayerZero completes the acquisition, the STG holders who missed a higher offer will inevitably be angry, something Wormhole would love to see as it could lead to a split in LayerZero's community. The fourth scenario is that StarGate forcibly progresses the vote, assuming the proposal ultimately fails due to opposition from the StarGate community (, with current support still above 88% and a very low likelihood of failure ), thus Wormhole's obstruction plan succeeds. Overall, I personally lean towards the second and third scenarios, as StarGate is LayerZero's core product, and the latter definitely does not want to bear the consequences of losing that product. Fluid's COO DMH succinctly summarized the current situation: "Clearly, StarGate and LayerZero had already reached an agreement before the proposal; Wormhole is very angry that LayerZero bought Singapore for a bag of rice; thus, Wormhole chooses to raise the price, attempting to disrupt LayerZero's...