Decentralization is freedom. @stableunitdao, ex 1inch, Amazon, Facebook, xSigmaDEX, Math degree, dev over $1B smartcontracts
Joined September 2017
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I got a surprise from @MetaMask this morning... I think I now own the whole crypto market or something.
Alex Lebed | StableUnit ๐ฆ๐๐ฆ retweeted
The day after she made this post, she was found dead
Hsin-Ju was one of the nicest people I met and made this industry feel inclusive
May you rest in peace @hsinju ๐
1/ gm. gm. Name is Hsin-Ju.
I have a dark, kinda tragic personal announcement.
I've decided I'd rather take $0 than accept a settlement that requires me to stay silent about what happened to me. I have since fired my lawyers at @sanfordheisler & will be releasing all the evidence from my time @hack_vc on Wed 8/26.
INTRO: I've been in crypto for 9 years. Most recently I was a partner & head of platform @hack_vc which is a $600-700M crypto VC firm. Many of you may know me from my time as Head of Growth at @StellarOrg in 2017 (worked w/ the Mt. Gox founder), @Solana in 2018 (joined under ~10 ppl, but quit before my cliff), & @Fhenix in 2024. Or have attended one of my @DystopiaLabs ETH events (2019-now).
Last year, I was forced to work through a serious medical emergency while at @Hack_VC due to threats by @alpackaP @dbulaevsky, saying that they would blacklist me from the space if I quit before finishing the hacksummit conference & side events that I was helping with during @kbwofficial. I was working 13-14hr days, 6 days a week, sleeping 0-4 hrs a night, and had documented Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia. I repeatedly asked to quit. Hack VC refused. This + other threats and intimidation went on for almost a month.
The conditions got so bad I attempted suicide.
The fucked up part is that, even after the suicide attempt, I told everyone at Hack VC (in writing) that I had no plans to sue. I was scared & extremely sick. I just wanted to leave. I told them that as long as there was no retaliation or badmouthing - I had no plans to sue.
@Hack_VC chose to retaliate.
After just 1 month after my near suicide, Hack VC mishandled my COBRA health insurance, refused to fix things, kept shooing me to customer support (when it's legally Hack VC's responsibility to fix this), and my insurance had issues and was not fixed for almost 4 MONTHS. Hack VC did not fix everything until I hired lawyers and had them force Hack VC to adhere to the law & fix my COBRA insurance issues. The sheer cruelty of an employer harming someone's health insurance almost immediately after they nearly committed suicide is extremely fucked up.
And, even during the legal engagement, Hack VC continued to lie & attempt to harm me through their lawyers and other employees/partners (multi-million dollar carry & clawbacks can make even the nicest ppl willing to turn the other way or lie). @0xRodney @IsTheBaron @roshunpatel @Alex__Botte.
Now. Almost an entire year of engagement & my near suicide anniversary coming up, our lawyers (mine & Hack VC's) have reached the point of preparing for private mediation and settlement. And...I realized that I just can't do it. I don't want money in exchange for silence. I'd rather speak.
I fired my lawyers yesterday.
In case it needs to be said, I did a good job at Hack VC. I was only there full time for 7 months; been part-time since 2021. I got a $50k raise to $300k, $30k bonus, and promises of additional carry that would have been implemented about a week or so after my last day. I was also offered admission into the GP entity (but not sure if admission was actually completed bc it was during my medical emergency). This + my resume, should show that me suing is not a money grab; I was genuinely harmed.
I'm aware that I'm just one person (who is not rich) facing a $600-700M VC institution. I've been told by @alpackaP that he's known most of the managing partners at most VC firms for almost a decade and he could absolutely blacklist me.
I'm also painful aware that the conclusion of this will probably be extremely poor for me or death - but I've accepted it.
Sharing with other web2 & web3 VCs:
@paulg @ycombinator @500STARTUPS @a16zcrypto @PanteraCapital @dragonflyvc @RaceCapital @hosseeb @haunventures @hiFramework @ElectricCapital @blockchaincap @Delphi_Digital @variantfund @1kxnetwork @archetypevc @shimacapital @robotventures, etc.
TLDR; Iโm done with continued threats, pressure, and intimidation. I'm not going to take a payout and allow Alex or Hack VC to walk away from harming me. As mentioned, I'll be dropping the evidence from my case on Wed 8/26 (or before) -- privacy be damned.
Support here (or DM) please:
ETH: 0x68c10776C5c05Cbf5B4C2318bE02D61B9f06B875
SOL: B7S8TPcWWJXTsmgG8ShoTmy8sNPuJ3Dbmt7z5gLFAveq
the last reel I made for Instagram got 500k views, 7k likes, and 2.2k comments, but only 70 new followers.
Yesterday, I made another one. I recorded 5 cuts the last night. When i watched them I felt it was a so so reel, wouldn't get viral. But I was very tired (12:30am) and didn't have the energy to get better shots and need to keep building my "geting out there" habit so posted anyway.
Now it's 8:30 AM, and I've gained 600 new followers. I didn't even see how many views/likes it got, but the insta algorithm is unpredictable.
Takeaway: even if it feels like a bad take, post it anyway. You never know how what people will actually like.
People spent years mocking Elon for dropping $44B on Twitter.
Now SpaceX pays $60B for Cursor, and barely anyone is talking about how ridiculous that valuation is.
Notice how Sam waited until AFTER the ink was dry to announce the cutoff? If he says something earlier, the valuation crashes or the deal dies completely. We're talking a difference of billions.
He literally waited until the money was wired.
Probably just a coincidence though.
Weโre ending our partnership with Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX. Under our proposal, Cursorโs direct access to our models would end on November 12.
We know that the people most affected by this decision are the developers who rely on OpenAI models in Cursor. We care about their experience in this transition and weโre ready to go above and beyond to support them.
openai.com/index/our-decisioโฆ
Update: I no longer think this person was trying to hack or scam me - just reckless behavior. But the bigger problem remains: weโre all one random ban away from losing accounts weโve spent years building.
---
Since the post got so many views, i feel i need to share an update. After getting information from everyone, I no longer think this person was trying to hack or scam me. The biggest reason is that my old buddy @jlomichaux, founder of Serendipia, knows him well, had several friends in common, has hung out with him in HK, and heavily vouched for him. I trust JLO.
My best reconstruction: the account he messaged from my phone was apparently an impostor/scammer pretending to be him. Perhaps drunk, he decided to get revenge - sent profanity and reported it, somehow this account auto-reported mine or that intro msg triggered an automated restriction on my account.
The problem: he did it from MY phone telling me he couldn't message me first during contact exchange, did that thing, archived this chat to hide it, handed my phone back like nothing happened, but later claimed Iโd given him consent. I didn't.
Ironically, turned out I have the whole interaction voice-recorded: Iโd used my smart watch as a backup mic during an interview with @s19kravtsov and forgot to half recording. So not a word of an imposter acc, no my consent either. Can share it here if anyone wants. Also somehow was able to dm me from his allegedly restricted account few hours after i posted this on twitter. anyway.
So it looks more like alcohol + doing something โfor lulzโ than a deliberate attempt to steal my tg account. I still have no idea why anyone would do this from someone elseโs phone. But it would be a hacker, i could be completed fucked at this point.
๐ฆ๐ผ ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐ต๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐ฝ๐ต๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐ฎ๐ป๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ ๐ฐ๐ฟ๐๐ฝ๐๐ผ ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐!!!
But honestly, the individual incident concerns me far less than the broader problem it exposed.
1) Telegram is insanely sensitive. I personally know many people who have lost their long-standing tg accounts including founder of $1b TVL protocols. Meanwhile, I know very few whoโve lost their Twitter accounts, although quite a few KOLs have been hacked - for example, someone tried to scam me from @jchainsโs hacked account a year ago.
2) D๐ผ๐ปโ๐ ๐ธ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฝ ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐ฒ๐ด๐ด๐ ๐ถ๐ป ๐ผ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐๐ธ๐ฒ๐!!! decade+ old account containing contacts, chats, communities and years of history can effectively disappear because of one automated decision. Connect with all important contacts somewhere else as well. twitter, linkined or the best is email.
BTW congrat me, i randomly got my ban lifted, despite harsh words "not possible. We are worried that we can't guarantee our users' safety from unwanted messages, ๐ฆ๐ต๐ผ๐๐น๐ฑ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ผ๐๐ป๐ ๐ฏ๐ฒ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐น๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ด๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป" - whether the algorithm got friendlier or some frens who promised to help actually helped - unclear. Thanks anyway!
But I know dozens of Instagram creators whoโve lost large accounts with no apparent ToS violation. My own Facebook account was banned in 2020 despite me being a former Facebook engineer and not posting anything (i even had selfie with Zuckerberg as an avatar photo). Airbnb banned me after ~10 years as a nomad and mid-five figures spent on the platform, with zero explanation (this one is especially annoying, and i know other nomads who lost theirs). Namecheap banned my account because Iโm a Russian, along with a bunch of other services. Even goddamn Hinge banned me ๐๐ณ๐๐ฒ๐ฟ I deleted my own account, so apparently I canโt create a new one and will now die alone with no waifu =(
The pattern is the same: cloud services can become incredibly valuable parts of our lives, while from the platformโs perspective each individual user is completely disposable. One bad opsec intern's prompt away.
Your identity, contacts, audience, reputation, messages, domains, accommodation history, dating profile, business relationships - increasingly all of it exists inside databases controlled by companies that can revoke your access, sometimes automatically, with little meaningful recourse.
This is one area where I genuinely wish all the crypto/blockchain stuff would deliver on its original promise.
At least money in a properly secured non-custodial wallet canโt be taken away because some automated moderation system decided you no longer deserve an account. right?
Never hand your smartphone to anyone at a crypto conference!
At CoinFest, I met a person, he couldnโt scan qr so i naively gave my phone so he can search himself on Telegram. Instead he messaged another contact spam/profanity, blocked them, and archived the chat so I wouldnโt see it. Then he tried to message himself, and my acc was instantly perma-banned.
He handed my phone back, pretending it simply hadnโt worked.
12-year-old Telegram gone just like that. Not sure if it malicious or retarded act or both, but donโt repeat my mistake.
Alex Lebed | StableUnit ๐ฆ๐๐ฆ retweeted
One thing before I start: everything in this post is public information from my own docket. None of it is new, and I'm not revealing anything you can't already find in the court filings yourself.
The retrial just got pushed to April 26, 2027. The order came down today (Dkt. 300). My acquittal motion is still sitting there, undecided. I honestly don't know when this ends.
Prosecutors are supposed to protect American interests and go after people who broke the law. A jury deadlocked on the two most serious counts against me. And still SDNY won't stop, because this case was never just about me. It's about setting an example.
Don't take my word for it. Tara La Morte, the chief of SDNY's Illicit Finance and Money Laundering Unit, said it herself at a New York City Bar Association event (Law360, Feb. 23, 2024; filed on my docket as Doc. 25-2):
"We want the industry to take notice."
"What we're trying to do is sort of bring the industry into compliance, and I think Tornado Cash is an example of that."
An example. Out of a developer who wrote code.
At that same event, her deputy praised the government's blockchain-tracing partner, Chainalysis.
Here is what they didn't tell the audience. All of it is from the public docket in my case.
According to the trial transcripts, Chainalysis was running its OWN Tornado Cash relayer, and earning fees on the transactions flowing through it.
- Chainalysis's own lawyers admitted to "a relayer node that Chainalysis operated"; my subpoena sought documents on Tornado Cash relayer(s) "used from March to August 2022." (Dkt. 211)
- In open court, the prosecutor said it plainly: "I think the parties agree as to that part of the testimony, that the Chainalysis relayer earned fees." Same hearing: "there's zero evidence that the defendant was in any way aware that Chainalysis was running a relayer." (Dkt. 259, July 25, 2025)
So the company that helped trace my "criminal" transactions was itself profiting from Tornado Cash transactions, while I was prosecuted over software I helped create.
And when my lawyers subpoenaed them to testify?
- Chainalysis moved to quash. (Dkt. 211)
- The government backed them: "Your Honor, we agree with the position outlined in the motion." (Dkt. 255)
- The night before, prosecutors called Chainalysis's counsel. The judge asked point-blank: "Did you let them know that they were potentially subject to investigation or prosecution?" The answer: "We have discussed at a high level some of the issues surrounding the relayer with Chainalysis." (Dkt. 259)
- The Chainalysis witness took the Fifth. My lawyers learned about that call only afterward, from Chainalysis's own lawyer. (Dkt. 263)
The jury never heard any of it.
This spring, at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, something happened that I still can't quite believe. The Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and the FBI Director, Kash Patel, sat on a panel called "Code is Free Speech."
Think about that. The two top law enforcement officials in the country. Blanche told thousands of developers: if you're a coder and you're not the one committing the crime, "you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged." He said the last administration's crypto cases were "outrageous attacks on the industry." Patel praised "the Chainalysises of the world" as FBI partners.
And when the moderator pointed at the elephant in the room, my case, Tornado Cash, Roman Storm, the Acting Attorney General called it a "lingering case" they are "continuing to deal with."
So here is my hypothetical question. If code is free speech, why am I still being prosecuted for writing it? And if the Chainalysises of the world are the partners, the same Chainalysis that ran its own Tornado Cash relayer and earned fees from Tornado Cash users, while I never did, why is it off the hook?
They made an example out of a developer for writing code. Their own vendor ran the same infrastructure, pocketed the fees, and got a phone call instead of a prosecution.
Sources ๐๐๐
Ask ChatGPT to pick a number between 1 and 30. Itโll always say 17 or 23.
- it everything you need to know about LLMs creativity
Never hand your smartphone to anyone at a crypto conference!
At CoinFest, I met a person, he couldnโt scan qr so i naively gave my phone so he can search himself on Telegram. Instead he messaged another contact spam/profanity, blocked them, and archived the chat so I wouldnโt see it. Then he tried to message himself, and my acc was instantly perma-banned.
He handed my phone back, pretending it simply hadnโt worked.
12-year-old Telegram gone just like that. Not sure if it malicious or retarded act or both, but donโt repeat my mistake.
Takeaway: never hand anyone your unlocked phone, even for 10 seconds. Let them scan your QR, type their username yourself, or carry a printed QR card.
And never let a 12-year-old account become a single point of failure. Back up your contacts and maintain another way to reach everyone.
In 2020 my Facebook account was block for unknown reasons with all my contacts, including my former colleagues from โฆ facebook so I couldnโt even message them to ask whatโs going on.๐ฅด
everyone where so hyping about watermark detection for the last 48h,
did anyone actually were able to verify that claude/chatGPT generated text can be detected? @guillaumemeyer's repo with almost 7k starts doen't do, did anyone actually cared to run it?
how does it come that everyone are okay that twitter pay-to-win disgenunie monetization
also, and scam they called: "verified account".
what does exactly twitter is reviewing when you pay them? Because i canceled payment over app-store and now to pay via website because i need to dm on emf who has 10 common followers with me but can't unless i pay to twitter.
Both terms "verified" and "under review" are misleading lying bs.
I know nobody reads my Twitter, but this quietly fixed AI coding for me.
For months, Iโve used a Claude/Codex skill that turns every finished workflow into:
โข a tweet-sized summary
โข 3 clickable next actions
No walls of text. No deciding what to type. Just click and continue.
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