NFT Marketplace Gem.xyz Ousts Developer Over 'Pattern of Sexual Misconduct'
Co-founder Lorens Huculak says developer "Neso" was dismissed after the team was made aware of the situation.
Apr 12, 2022 at 7:17 a.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/7V4NK53AOFBE3B4PC326YU4TQI.png)
Screengrab from interview between Gem.xyz's co-founders and Nansen (YouTube)
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Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.
A pseudonymous developer going by the handle "Neso," who was involved in the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Gem.xyz, has been dismissed after the core team was made aware of allegations of sexual improprieties.
- In an update posted on the project's Discord, co-founder Lorens Huculak said that "after immediately undertaking a review of the allegations, we determined the actions to be in clear violation of our values and expectations, and we exited Neso immediately."
- When contacted by CoinDesk, Huculak did not go into further details regarding the allegations or say if he was aware of Neso's real identity, only pointing to an earlier statement on Discord that the company is fully remote and Neso was an anonymous developer.
- Like many projects in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, some members of Gem's teams use pseudonyms, making any sort of due diligence or background checks difficult.
- In January, the DeFi community behind the protocol Wonderland was rocked when it learned that "Sifu," a core member of the founding team, was previously the co-founder of the infamous Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX.
- Although Huculak refers to Neso as an anonymous developer, in a prior video interview with blockchain analytics platform Nansen, Neso is listed as a co-founder.
- Huculak would not confirm if Neso is a shareholder of Gem XYZ Pte Ltd, the Singapore-registered firm behind the project.
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Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.
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Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.
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