SquirrelBBG | Treehouse Intern 🌳

Wen Treehouse TGE? I’ve been fortunate to experience both sides of a traditional IPO. First, as a junior on the Capital Markets team at HSBC - a stint that taught me one thing above all: timing is everything. Get it right, and your stock trades on narrative, momentum, and positioning. Get it wrong, and sometimes the story never recovers. Circle is one of the few that recently got it right, but only after delaying their IPO three times over four years. They finally pulled the trigger right after the stablecoin bill cleared Congress, and that patience has made them the face of crypto in public markets today. Most companies aren’t as fortunate; many flop, and some never even make it to the opening bell. I spent time on the other side too – as an Equity Research monkey for buy-side funds. That role taught me a few things: that an IPO is just the beginning; that managing investors is a full-time job; and that transparency and accountability walk a very fine line. Part of the role meant grilling CEOs, CFOs, and IR teams during earnings season, alongside institutions holding 5–10% of the company. Interestingly, crypto isn’t that different; except instead of BlackRock or the JP Analyst next to you, it’s a keyboard warrior with a penguin PFP yelling in Discord. And he’s heard. This is the only industry where anyone - user, investor, community member - can show up and sound like Bill Ackman on earnings day. And that’s beautiful. My point is this: a project’s TGE should be treated with the same seriousness as an IPO. To be clear, I’m not saying a TGE is an IPO (our lawyers are twitching as I write this). Tokens are a different beast. But having sat on both sides - Web2 and Web3 - I’ve come to respect what it means to get a launch right. But why write this? Accountability vs Transparency Crypto’s unique because the accountability spectrum is massive. Some projects have zero. Others, ironically, are more accountable than their Web2 counterparts. In Web2, accountability is often gated: top shareholders get the board seats and private updates, while everyone else waits for quarterly earnings calls. In Web3, anyone with skin in the game could potentially be in the same Telegram group. But accountability and transparency are not the same thing. You can be accountable without being fully transparent, and you can be transparent without being truly accountable. That might sound contradictory, but it’s how most robust systems are designed. Accountability isn’t about flooding people with information too. It’s about being responsible for outcomes. It’s about building systems where actions have consequences, and where incentives are aligned across stakeholders. That’s why transparency alone isn’t enough. Some teams overshare to appear honest, but never follow through. Meanwhile, some of the most responsible protocols rarely tweet, but consistently ship. The opposite is also true: a lack of constant transparency doesn’t mean you’re hiding something. Some of the best systems in the world, like blockchains, are trustless by design. They don’t care who’s the validator in your transaction. They work because incentives are aligned and rules are clear. The same logic applies to us at @TreehouseFi. Don’t just look at what we’re tweeting. Look at how we’re behaving, and look at the variables that naturally make us accountable. For starters: I’m doxxed (hi). We’ve been around for over four years. We’re 40+ full-time employees deep. And growing. And when it comes to transparency, we’re deliberate - because it’s a double-edged sword. Share too little, and people think you’re hiding something. Share too much, and you dilute the focus. The art is in the balance: knowing when to speak, what to show, and who needs to see it. And above all, making sure the people who actually have a stake in the outcome can trust that you’ll do what you say. That’s why we’re doing this now. Because this is one of those moments where transparency helps. Not performatively and not out of pressure. But because our community deserves to know what’s behind the curtain. So… Wen TGE? It’s the #1 question our socials team has been fielding for months. So here goes: We’re ready - but we’re watching. But… why wait when we’re ready? Because timing is a function of many things: market mood, liquidity conditions, capital flows, and thematics. It’s the same stuff IPO and DCM desks obsess over - especially if we want the token to perform, and not just spike on day one. Crypto equities may be hot right now, but if you zoom out, the token side looks murky. Liquidity is patchy at best, and any MM or exchange would tell you that weekday volumes in this market feel like weekend flow. Part of this is driven by $TRUMP, Pump.fun, and this cycle’s meme rotations, which have collectively sucked out short-term energy. Outside of $BTC, capital hasn’t really rotated back in, yet. Therefore, we ask for your patience because this process is delicate. At the end of the day, we only get one shot - and we owe it to everyone who’s built with us, supported us, and waited for this moment, to get it right. @TreehouseFi has been around for four years. We’ve weathered Luna, 3AC, and FTX. And we’re still here. That says a lot. We’re not here to play the short game. And when we launch, it’ll be because we believe the environment is right for our token, our product, and our community. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been focused on: how we’re thinking about product, positioning, and strategy. Because while TGE timing matters, it’s the fundamentals that do the heavy lifting after Day 1. 1. The Road for tETH Not all TVL is created equal: if the underlying assets aren’t being put to work, it’s a vanity metric. And if it’s propped up by private deals, it’s not sustainable. That’s why our vaults are capped. I’m proud to say that every unit of TVL in tETH today is fully deployed for its intended purpose, and not a single cent comes from backdoor deals today. Our growth strategy is long-term and measured. We don’t believe in short-term theatrics: that’s why you won’t see massive, sudden, unrealistic spikes on our charts. We want users who are here for the right reasons. Not mercenary capital, but real holders who see tETH as a way to earn $ETH staking yield, MEY arbitrage, and power the fixed income layer, DOR. We take inspiration from the best, knowing that Lido didn’t get here overnight, but through years of reliability and steady growth. That's the trust we are building for tETH. Over the weekend, $tETH became the 4th ETH asset to go live on AAVE Prime, and many more use cases are coming with the largest protocols in DeFi. 2. The Treehouse Token Everything we’ve done so far has been with long-term alignment in mind, and that’s why we’re confident heading into TGE. The majority of tETH’s TVL is unlevered, which means our points system isn't artificially diluted. We’ve been intentional from the start: filtering out sybils, adjusting for participation, and calibrating the system to reward consistency, not short-term spikes. The result is a distribution and payout that reflects actual contribution. More importantly, our token is not just a wrapper for points, but one with real utility, starting with DOR. We’re one of the first protocols to not only build a full fixed income pricing layer for crypto, but to publish a full book (“One Rate to Rule Them All”) on how it works, not for marketing, but because the mechanism matters. DOR is already being integrated by TradFi firms, RWA protocols, and even off-chain applications. And the entire system will be powered by our token. 3. Building an Ecosystem We’re not waiting around. We’re building an ecosystem around DOR. DOR is already seeing real-world traction. We’re working with RWA protocols to integrate DOR as their pricing layer. These aren’t pilots or grants: they’re commercial contracts we’ve signed. Two new chains are onboarding DOR to power their fixed income infrastructure, and one of the world’s largest prime brokers is using our data to price structured derivatives. These are serious institutions looking for trusted benchmarks, and they’re choosing us. We’ve been deliberate in how we support the ecosystem. We’re not just handing out grants and hoping something sticks. We’re focused on use cases that reinforce the DOR flywheel: protocols that deepen utility, increase data usage, and create recurring flows back to the token. Internally, we’re also building on top of the DOR stack. From yield products to index vaults, our team is developing native protocols from scratch to demonstrate what’s possible and create the initial surface area for DOR growth. These in-house efforts aren’t stopgaps; they’re designed to bring real value back to Treehouse and the Treehouse token over time. The goal is simple: make DOR the standard, and build the rails around it that let the ecosystem compound. Gaia is Coming We’re a 40-strong team, fully focused, building relentlessly, and playing the long game. No shortcuts, no smoke and mirrors: just real work and real progress. The fixed income and RWA revolution is coming fast, and @TreehouseFi will be at the center of it all. While others talk, we’re shipping - hitting vault caps, onboarding major partners, expanding to new chains, delivering new tAssets and use cases. This is only the beginning. Gaia is coming.