DefiLlama Team Fractures Over Potential Token Launch

DefiLlama drama emerged Sunday as one of the project’s pseudonymous co-founders directed people to a forked version of the blockchain data platform on Twitter, warning of a hostile takeover sparked by a potential token launch.

“There is an ongoing attempt to launch a token that does not represent us,” said 0xngmi. “We don’t want to be associated with it.”

0xngmi said the person with control of DefiLlama’s web domain and Twitter account had made the decision to announce the forthcoming launch of a DefiLlama token, despite internal pushback from the team. The move led 0xngmi to establish the website llama.fi and a corresponding Twitter account, which had gained over 6,000 followers as of Sunday afternoon.

The website closely resembles defillama.com except for the omission of links to a few tools, such as the DefiLlama-branded news website DLNews and Web3 infrastructure service LlamaNodes.

0xLlam4, another pseudonymous co-founder of DefiLlama, confirmed to Decrypt that he is the sole person in possession of DefiLlama’s Twitter account and web domain. He said he’s trying to reach a resolution that best serves the project’s community.

“We are hoping to resolve things behind closed doors,” 0xLlam4 told Decrypt via a Twitter message. “Keeping DeFiLlama as best as it can be is the most important thing.”

0xLlam4 subsequently stopped responding to questions.

Confusion followed in DefiLlama’s Discord server when a link to 0xngmi’s statement was posted, with community members left wondering whether DefiLlama had become compromised or hacked.

“It’s real,” 0xngmi said on Discord. The co-founder later took to Twitter to say that people have no “need to panic,” explaining that the website had not been hacked, only that there was an ongoing disagreement regarding a token launch. 0xngmi did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Decrypt.

DefiLlama’s Twitter account teased yesterday that there might be “some nice surprises” in the future for people who contribute to and use the project’s services, capping off the statement with a parachute emoji—without specifically mentioning an airdrop.

Days earlier, DefiLlama’s Twitter account retweeted a poll conducted earlier this month that sought input on ways that the service could generate revenue, adding that the account’s followers may have “missed another option.”

Though 0xngmi was first to claim that DefiLlama was being taken over in a hostile manner, a message sent in one of the project’s Telegram channels claimed that 0xngmi had “gone rogue” less than an hour after 0xngmi’s initial Tweet.

“0xngmi and a few team members have gone rogue, they are actively looking to seize Defillama IP and community while inaccurately claiming the rightful owner to be doing a hostile takeover,” the statement said.

A pseudonymous DefiLlama contributor called Tendeeno on Twitter ascribed the conflict to the project’s lack of revenue, which led to the rift between 0xLlam4 and 0xngmi.

Tendeeno claimed that 0xLlam4’s solution was launching a DefiLlama-branded token, which 0xLlam4 planned to do “with or without the approval of a single member of the [DefiLlama] team.” 0xLlam4 said the statement is not accurate without elaborating further.

Pushing back against the notion of a token launch, Tendeeno said it would be a “stain” on the project’s reputation with no way of going back. And because 0xLlam4 controls DefiLlama’s Twitter account, he said “they could announce a token at any time, and essentially hold the team hostage.”

Aside from it being against an alleged majority of the team’s wishes, Tendeeno said a token launch would hinder how the project currently operates, explaining that “tokens distract people via ‘y number go’ down messages.”

But regardless of whether DefiLlama decides to create its own cryptocurrency in the future, the idea garnered chatter within DefiLlama’s discord server on Sunday, with multiple users asking when it will be launched. One user named Denome said, “You can avoid the ‘y number go down’ messages but not the ‘wen token?’ messages.”