Fetch.ai CEO Humayun Sheikh announced a quarter-million dollar reward for information about the signers of the OceanDAO multisig wallet. This move has once again escalated tensions with Ocean Protocol — amid allegations of possible misappropriation of funds even before the merger with Fetch.ai as part of the alliance.
The conflict dates back to the time of controversial token swaps, long before the launch of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI), which included Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol and SingularityNet.
Ocean Protocol accused of transferring funds before the merger
Humayun Sheikh promised $250,000 to anyone who provides information linking the signers of the OceanDAO multisig wallet to the Ocean Protocol Foundation. Such a wallet requires multiple confirmations for a single transaction — a standard security measure when access is shared by several parties.
According to analytics platform Bubblemaps, before the ASI alliance merger, Ocean Protocol converted 661 million OCEAN tokens into 286 million FET. Later, 270 million FET were sent to exchanges, of which 160 million went to Binance, and another 109 million to GSR Markets.
According to Sheikh, such actions undermine trust within the alliance.
“Funds that were supposed to serve the community were withdrawn,” he wrote on X, calling on Binance and GSR to investigate.
Ocean Protocol called the accusations groundless and promised to issue an official response.
Interestingly, Binance stopped accepting OCEAN deposits as early as October 15, a few days before Sheikh’s statement. Although the exchange did not link this decision to the conflict, the timing sparked speculation.
Meanwhile, Sheikh himself promised to fund class actions in several jurisdictions to hold Ocean Protocol accountable.
Legal consequences and market impact
Analysts believe that this conflict could affect investor confidence in AI-token alliances. Previously, the ASI union was valued at over $7 billion and was supposed to unite efforts to create decentralized AI. Now the project faces a reputational blow.
The reward announced by Sheikh could provoke closer scrutiny of multisig systems and token storage issues within crypto alliances. If the case goes to court, it could set a precedent for future blockchain projects with collective management and asset distribution.
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Officially, Ocean Protocol left the ASI alliance on October 9, but did not comment on the movement of the disputed tokens. The escalation of the conflict highlights how fragile trust can be in joint crypto projects without a transparent governance model.
FET token performance over the past year. Source: Coingecko
As of October 21, the FET token from Fetch.ai was trading around $0.25 — that’s 9% lower than the day before. Analysts attribute the sharp drop to overall market volatility and community uncertainty. At the end of March 2024, FET reached an all-time high of $3.45, the current price is almost 92% below the peak.
OCEAN token performance over the past year. Source: Coingecko
The OCEAN token from Ocean Protocol also fell by 4% over the day, to about $0.25. Its peak was in mid-April 2021, when it was worth $1.93. Since then, the price has dropped by about 87%.
