I understand that Nevin’s primary concern regarding burning treasury is that the project might need these tokens in the future to fund growth. I have written a short argument as to why we can burn most of the treasury and still be able to fund future growth. I work primarily with stocks, so this is what I used below to make the argument, but the principle still applies to RSR.
Please note that I used ChatGPT to organize my thoughts and improve on the references that I originally selected to frame my logic, but this work is mine.
Please read through it and let me know your thoughts:
The Economics of Shareholder Value: Resolving Treasury-Share Overhang
When management retains an outsized number of treasury shares under the rationale of “future growth,” the market discounts that position. Investors implicitly price in the latent supply, treating those shares as deferred dilution. The result is a persistent valuation overhang: the stock trades at a structural discount not because of fundamentals, but because of uncommitted optionality in management’s hands—a dynamic consistent with the documented issuance overhang effect in which expected equity supply depresses valuations (Pontiff & Woodgate 2008; Asquith & Mullins 1986).
A substantial burn of those treasury shares—canceling most while retaining a residual amount—would be economically accretive on multiple dimensions. The immediate arithmetic effect is an increase in per-share value through contraction of potential supply. More importantly, the burn removes the perceived threat of dilution, eliminates uncertainty around capital deployment, and forces the market to re-underwrite the equity on operating performance rather than speculative issuance risk (Grullon & Michaely 2004).
This action delivers three distinct payoffs.
First, existing shareholders realize an instant uplift in intrinsic value per share. The marginal investor no longer discounts the stock for potential issuance; the bid-ask equilibrium re-centers around the current float. The re-rating is not merely mechanical—it reflects a lower implied cost of equity (Wang 2023; Grullon & Michaely 2004) and higher confidence in governance discipline. Empirical work shows that repurchase announcements typically generate abnormal positive returns (Ikenberry, Lakonishok & Vermaelen 1995) and subsequent long-run outperformance, indicating persistent underreaction to supply contraction.
Second, the company’s remaining treasury shares—though fewer—become more valuable in option-like terms. Because the overhang has been neutralized, the surviving treasury position functions as a high-convexity call on future growth. The total notional value of treasury holdings may fall in absolute terms, but their marginal value relative to realized growth potential increases sharply. The firm effectively converts dormant optionality into leveraged exposure to future value creation.
Third, the signaling effect rebalances expectations. Markets that previously doubted the growth narrative now face a self-contained equilibrium: either growth does not materialize—in which case the equity structure is right-sized—or growth does materialize, in which case the residual treasury shares appreciate alongside the public float. Repurchases and retirements serve as credible signals of managerial confidence (Bagwell & Shoven 1991; Lin et al. 2014), further compressing the equity risk premium.
Case 1: No Growth.
Absent growth, the burn rationalizes the capital structure. The float aligns with steady-state earnings power, and the deadweight optionality previously embedded in treasury stock is eliminated. Liquidity remains intact (Brockman, Howe & Mortal 2008), and supply-demand for the equity find equilibrium without the persistent threat of issuance.
Case 2: Material Growth.
If management’s thesis proves correct, the burn amplifies equity convexity. The market re-prices the stock upward as deferred skepticism evaporates. The remaining treasury shares, representing a smaller fraction of total capital, expand in absolute value and can later be deployed at higher valuation multiples—effectively preserving financing capacity without depressing current valuation.
Across the continuum between these cases, the same economic principle holds: eliminating most of the overhang converts trapped equity into realized value and transforms managerial credibility into a tangible capital-structure advantage. For sophisticated investors, this maneuver is not financial cosmetics but a rational optimization of expected shareholder value—pricing uncertainty out of the stock while preserving upside optionality if growth is ultimately proven.
I have chosen to tap into the economics of stocks rather than crypto because of the wealth of studies that have been conducted on the stock market, the longer history of market performance, and given that this is my own expertise. I submit that the logic is exactly the same.
In conclusion, I support the proposal submitted above.
References
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Asquith, P., & Mullins, D. W. (1986). Equity Issues and Offering Dilution. Journal of Financial Economics.Elsevier link
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Bagwell, L. S., & Shoven, J. B. (1991). Share Repurchase and Takeover Deterrence. RAND Journal of Economics. Columbia GSB PDF
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Brockman, P., Howe, J. S., & Mortal, S. (2008). Stock Market Liquidity and the Decision to Repurchase. Journal of Corporate Finance. ScienceDirect link
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Grullon, G., & Michaely, R. (2004). The Information Content of Share Repurchase Programs. Journal of Finance.JSTOR link
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Ikenberry, D., Lakonishok, J., & Vermaelen, T. (1995). *Market Underreaction to Open Market Share Repurchases.*Journal of Financial Economics. NBER version
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Lin, J.-C., et al. (2014). Limited Attention, Share Repurchases, and Takeover Risk. Journal of Banking & Finance.ScienceDirect link
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Pontiff, J., & Woodgate, A. (2008). Share Issuance and Cross-Sectional Returns. Journal of Finance. JSTOR link
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Wang, C. (2023). Share Repurchases and the Cost of Capital. Finance Research Letters. PubMed Central link