It’s all just words, of course, but the public quarrel is a reminder of DWF’s sudden emergence earlier this year. The company quickly and loudly popped up as a backer of startups. But there was soon debate around whether it was really engaging in venture capital investing, as some thought, or something less long-term: acting like an over-the-counter trading desk, approaching projects with the offer of buying up its tokens, then trying to sell them for a profit.