DeFiLlama Settles Internal Dispute, Backtracks Rumored Airdrop Plans

In a Mar 18 Twitter post highlighting a milestone achieved by its aggregator tool over the past three months, DeFiLlama hinted at a token airdrop.

The subtle implication led to a dispute within the team behind the decentralized finance (DeFi) data platform, which disagreed on its need. The strife remained unaddressed, leading to the creation of a “forked” version of the DeFi data tracking platform over the weekend. Contributors of the DeFi analytics platform on Monday, however, reached an amicable solution to their differing views on a rumored token launch.

DeFiLlama clears the air about alleged LLAMA token

Reports of trouble brewing within the DeFiLlama team surfaced on Sunday after a pseudonymous developer came out with claims that the platform was under a hostile takeover. The post from the employee, 0xngmi, implied a then-ongoing internal conflict between other contributors and the founding member. 0xngmi, in particular, leveled accusations against one of the early founders, faulting him for proceeding with token airdrop plans against the interest of the majority.

“There is an ongoing attempt to launch a token that does not represent us,” he wrote. “We don't want to be associated with it.”  

Another developer associated with the project, Tendeeno, seemed to back the claims by 0xngmi.

“Long story short, there was someone planning to launch a LLAMA token without approval of a single person on the DeFiLlama team,” Tendeeno said in a since-deleted post.

Following the brief split on Sunday, the platform’s leaderboard page, which has served as a reputable market reference in the past existed in two locations – the original one launched in October 2020 that is still under the defillama.com domain and at llama.fi for the forked one. DefiLlama responded with counter-accusations that 0xngmi and other team members had gone rogue. In the latest update on Mar 20, DefiLlama apologized for the mess acknowledging that it was borne of “poor communication”, which ultimately led to a “misunderstanding”. The update also clarified that the rumored token airdrop in question is not on the table for discussion at the time.

“We would like to put what happened behind us. There is no LLAMA token currently planned, and any airdrop will be discussed with the community.”

0xngmi, the developer labelled rogue earlier, reassured his commitment and confirmed that the situation had been resolved and the forking intentions ‘canceled.’ In line with the resolution, the second domain, which hosted the forked version of the blockchain data, now redirects to the original one. The difference in opinions among the DeFiLlama team, which nearly led to a split, comes barely two months since leaders of the privacy-focused Secret Network sparred publicly over allegations of mismanagement.

Secret Network's recent leadership tussles

Smart Stake shut down its validator node last month following the revelation of concerning reports. Evidence of a crisis and internal turmoil that had been going on for a while now, Secret Labs accused Secret Foundation founder Tor Bair of cashing out millions in late 2021 without disclosure in the financial reports. The issues first came to light in 2022 when it was unearthed that the Secret Foundation was established as a profit-seeking entity, contradicting the prevalent assumption of it being a non-profit organization.

The constituent community expressed frustration with the perceived lack of visibility into the Foundation's operations and the absence of accountability mechanisms. As a result, in August 2022, the Secret Network community approved a proposal to have a deep dive into Secret’s finances, but the Secret Foundation failed to take any action to this effect, which then prompted the recent revelations.

Two contrasting sides

Guy Zyskind, founder and CEO of Secret Labs, said Bair conducted an over-the-counter trade of 645,989 SCRT tokens also in late 2021, resulting in a $4 million transaction and a $250,000 shortfall that was not documented.  This further contradicted the Foundation's Q4 2021 Transparency Report whose data showed an outflow of 645,989 SCRT tokens with a net dollar value change of $4.34 million. Though Bair disclosed the mishandled OTC sale a year later (last December), he quoted a different figure – around $200,000.

Responding in a statement, Bair watered down the allegations, explaining that the cash he withdrew was from an OTC sale of part of the 375,000 SCRT tokens he had previously vested. The Secret Foundation distributed the funds as a dividend of $2.625M ($7 price per token), verifiable by 2021 tax filings. With the latter entity marred due to other unreported financial irregularities, Zyskind proposed relaunching the platform with Secret 2.0, which would work as advertised. Bair, who insistently denied said misappropriation claims, agreed that there was a need to introduce changes in the workings of the Foundation.