According to @PANewsCN, Maelstrom co-founder and CIO Akshat Vaidya said he invested $100,000 into Pantera Early-Stage Token Fund LP four years ago and it is now $56,000 due to a 3% management fee and 30% performance fee, citing his X post x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091 and the PANews post twitter.com/PANewsCN/status/1985300438359621664. According to @PANewsCN, Vaidya stated that over the same period BTC roughly doubled while many seed-stage tokens rose 20–75x, and that fees have nearly wiped out half of LP capital, per his X post x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091 and the PANews post twitter.com/PANewsCN/status/1985300438359621664. According to @PANewsCN, Vaidya characterized a circa 50% loss in any cycle as among the worst outcomes, as reported in his X post x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091 and referenced by PANews twitter.com/PANewsCN/status/1985300438359621664. According to @PANewsCN, based on Vaidya’s figures the reported net value implies about a 44% drawdown versus an approximately 2x move in BTC over the period, highlighting material fee drag versus a BTC buy-and-hold benchmark, per his X post x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091 and the PANews post twitter.com/PANewsCN/status/1985300438359621664.

According to @akshat_hk, an LP commitment of $100,000 in an early-stage token fund fell to $56,000 over four years under a 3 percent management fee and 30 percent carry structure, while BTC doubled and many seed deals delivered 20x to 75x, indicating severe net-of-fee underperformance, source: X post by @akshat_hk on Nov 3, 2025, https://x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091. Based on those figures, the outcome implies roughly negative 13.5 percent annualized performance and about 3.6x underperformance versus simply holding BTC over the same period, source: X post by @akshat_hk on Nov 3, 2025, https://x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091. He labels this elite-level underperformance, noting vintage matters but asserting most early-stage crypto funds have grown too large for a small pool of true winners and that LPs need better at-scale deployment options, source: X post by @akshat_hk on Nov 3, 2025, https://x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091. Trading takeaway: in this sample, passive BTC beta outperformed a fee-heavy early-stage token fund net of fees, emphasizing fee drag and scaling constraints as key allocation risks to monitor, source: X post by @akshat_hk on Nov 3, 2025, https://x.com/akshat_hk/status/1979259734524912091.