The Protocol: Side-Dealing Accusations Put Crypto VC Funding in Spotlight

In this week's blockchain tech newsletter, we're highlighting the firm Polychain's accusation against a former general partner over an alleged ethics breach

The Protocol: Side-Dealing Accusations Put Crypto VC Funding in Spotlight

In this week's blockchain tech newsletter, we're highlighting the firm Polychain's accusation against a former general partner over an alleged ethics breach, along with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin's speech in Brussels and Bitcoin's Saxony problem.

The Ethereum Foundation's Vitalik Buterin drew more than 1,000 people into a room in Brussels at the EthCC conference, and CoinDesk's Margaux Nijkerk was on the scene. We've got that story plus lots of announcements emanating from Europe's biggest Ethereum-focused conference.

But one of the biggest blockchain stories making waves is the revelation (scooped by CoinDesk's Sam Kessler) that a prominent builder in the space has been accused by his former employer, the prestigious crypto venture-capital firm Polychain, of violating ethics policies by taking an undisclosed personal allocation of tokens from a project that raised funds from the firm. Read on.

ALSO:

This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday. Also please check out our weekly The Protocol podcast.

Network news

Polychain says Ritual co-founder Niraj Pant, an ex-general partner, broke its policies. (Ritual)

SIDE DEAL? Two months ago, the blockchain-development world was rocked by the news that Neel Somani, founder of the uber-modular blockchain project Eclipse, was stepping aside from his role in response to sexual misconduct allegations. Now, there's fresh accusations surrounding the project's fundraising. Crypto venture capital giant Polychain has accused Niraj Pant, a former general partner at the fund, of making a backroom deal with Eclipse that broke the fund's policies, a scoop by CoinDesk's Sam Kessler. According to three sources close to the situation and internal Eclipse documents reviewed by CoinDesk, Eclipse's Somani quietly allocated Pant 5% of a forthcoming Eclipse crypto token in September 2022 – just days after Pant directed Polychain to lead the company's $6 million pre-seed funding round. The allocation was eventually reduced to 1.33%, worth $13.3 million at the token's most recent fully diluted valuation in a private investment round. Pant insists the arrangement was completely kosher because it wasn't finalized until September 2022 – the month after Polychain had already invested in Eclipse. Under a copy of an agreement obtained by Kessler and signed by Somani, Pant's Psychological Operations Co. would receive a grant of Eclipse's tokens in exchange for "periodic teleconference sync meetings" as requested by Eclipse. Somani told his inner circle that the generous token grant was meant to incentivize Pant to secure Polychain's cash and the veteran VC's coveted endorsement, according to two people familiar with the matter. "Polychain's statement to CoinDesk grants a rare insight into the sausage-making process of the cozy world of crypto VC firms and the projects they fund," Kessler wrote. Snarky posters on the social-media platform X snickered ironically that they were "shocked" to learn that such practices might go on in the crypto fundraising scene.

Former President Donald Trump's Republican Party has officially adopted a platform that would seek to support cryptocurrency innovation, according to the document released Monday by the Republican National Committee. Separately, Multicoin Capital, one of the largest U.S. investment firms focused on cryptocurrency, is pledging up to $1 million to support Senate candidates with favorable views of the industry.

Residents of the small city of Granbury, Texas, have complained of suffering physical symptoms due to a "dull aural hum" emanating from a nearby Bitcoin mining facility that was "exceeding legal noise ordinances on a daily basis," Time reported. "A representative for Marathon Digital Holdings, the company that owns the mine, did not answer questions about health impacts, but told Time that it is working to remove the noisy fans from the site."

Blockchain games are "now emerging fully-cooked," writes David Z. Morris in a guest column: "That is, many are at least as enjoyable as games that have nothing to do with crypto." Another CoinDesk contributor, Jeff Wilser, examined the success of the tap-to-earn darling Hamster Kombat, a game launched on TON blockchain that has become so popular in Iran that the country's deputy military chief described it as part of the West's "soft war."

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin gave a keynote talk about hardening the Ethereum blockchain as a base layer, in front of a packed room full of an estimated 1,100 attendees, at a developer conference in Brussels on Wednesday. Buterin spoke at length during his presentation at the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) about the strengths and weaknesses of the largest smart-contracts