NOTE 7 – FAIR VALUE MEASUREMENTS 

Fair value measurements affect the Company’s accounting for certain of its financial assets. Fair value is defined as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date and is measured according to a hierarchy that includes:

As of September 30, 2024, and December 31, 2023, the Company used Level 1 quoted prices in active markets to value cash equivalents which were de minimis for both periods presented. The Company did not have any Level 2 or Level 3 assets or liabilities as of September 30, 2024. As of December 31, 2023, Level 3 liabilities included a portion of the Company’s outstanding Series D Warrants and all of the Company’s outstanding Series C Warrants issued in December 2023, which did not meet the criteria for equity classification due to insufficient authorized shares to settle the instruments and were therefore accounted for as liabilities at fair value. After the Company received stockholder approval to increase the number of authorized shares on January 25, 2024, the liability classified Series D Warrants and the Series C Warrants met all requirements for equity classification and, as a result, the Company reclassified them to equity as of January 25, 2024.

The Company used the Black-Scholes option pricing model to estimate the fair value of the Series D Warrants and the Series C Warrants using significant unobservable inputs, which represent Level 3 measurements within the fair value hierarchy. For periods prior to the receipt of stockholder approval, the fair value was then adjusted by applying a discount for lack of marketability (“DLOM”) based on the expected timing of receipt of stockholder approval to increase the number of authorized shares and to allow the Warrants to become exercisable in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635. Additionally, between April 1, 2024 and May 22, 2024, Level 3 liabilities included a portion of the Company’s outstanding August 2023 Warrants, Series A Warrants, Series B Warrants, Series C Warrants, and Series D Warrants (collectively, the “Existing Warrants”), as a result of certain Warrant Amendments entered into upon the closing of an equity financing on April 1, 2024, which provided for adjustments to the exercise prices of the Existing Warrants, contingent on approval by the Company’s stockholders of a proposal to allow the Existing Warrants to become exercisable in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635. The Company determined that the exercise price adjustment provision that is contingent on stockholder approval precluded the Existing Warrants from being indexed to the Company’s own stock, and therefore were reclassified to liabilities at post-modification fair value on April 1, 2024. After the Company received stockholder approval on May 22, 2024, thereby reducing the exercise prices of each of the Existing Warrants to $10.56 per share, the Existing Warrants met all requirements for equity classification and the Company reclassified them to equity as of May 22, 2024. To estimate the fair value of the Existing Warrants on the reclassification dates, the Company used a Black-Scholes option pricing model, probability weighted for different scenarios as applicable.

The following table summarizes the range of significant assumptions used in determining the fair value of liability-classified warrants as of December 31, 2023 and on the respective reclassification dates for the nine months ended September 30, 2024: 

A reconciliation of the beginning and ending balances for the liability-classified warrants measured at fair value on a recurring basis using significant unobservable inputs (Level 3) is as follows for the nine months ended September 30, 2024:

There were no liability-classified warrants measured at fair value on a recurring basis using significant unobservable inputs (Level 3) for the three or nine months ended September 30, 2023. Changes in the fair value of the liability-classified warrants are recognized as a separate component of income and expense in the consolidated statement of operations.