My thoughts on DESO vs. FOCUS:

Lets start with valuations. As of the time of this post, DESO is trading around $150 million while FOCUS is around $190 million. Those are fully diluted valuations. Many are wondering why FOCUS is trading at a premium to DESO. There are a few key differences which tell the story.

1. DESO tokens are more or less completely unlocked. However FOCUS tokens are only ~20% unlocked and will remain that way for the first year. Who owns the 20% of FOCUS tokens which are currently circulating? Early reservation holders. Individuals reserved FOCUS using DESO over a year ago and finally got access to their FOCUS tokens upon launch.
2. The core team put a floor on FOCUS in DESO terms which will remain in place at least the first year. The floor was set at an ~11% premium to where FOCUS reservation holders committed because the reserved DESO was staked and generated more DESO.
3. There is a significant liquidity difference in the automated market makers (AMMs) between DESO and FOCUS. Specifically, DESO has much more liquidity. Why does this matter? Lets say $1 million enters the ecosystem and buys DESO and then uses the DESO to buy FOCUS. If he or she is only trading vs. the AMM, then the FOCUS price will go up more on a percentage basis than DESO will because FOCUS has less liquidity. Note the same thing happens on the way down. If a FOCUS holder sells all their FOCUS and then proceeds to sell their DESO, the FOCUS price will decrease more than the DESO price. To illustrate this point, even though FOCUS is currently trading at a 35% premium to the floor, there is less than $500k USD being bid by the AMM between the floor and the current price.

Putting it all together what does this mean? The FOCUS reservation holders are the ones holding the supply. They feel comfortable holding FOCUS because they know the floor is in place and worst case they can just sell into the floor. As new money enters the ecosystem, DESO gets bid and then FOCUS gets bid. Based on (3) above, FOCUS should go up more in price than DESO. Does this imply FOCUS reservation holders should just hold FOCUS? What gives?

The answer is not necessarily. At some point the FOCUS premium will be large enough to attract FOCUS holders to start selling for DESO. Furthermore DESO holders currently earn a 20% staking yield which further incentivizes FOCUS holders to move back to DESO. There's a theta component to this whole premium game as well. After one year when more FOCUS unlocks begin and the floor is potentially removed, all bets are off. At this point, don't expect FOCUS to trade at a premium to DESO.

The objective of FOCUS holders is to maximize their DESO holdings. Are they better off holding and waiting for a potentially higher premium to DESO or taking the current premium in the market and staking? Time will tell.