Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge was sued by his ex-wife, who accused him of secretly making the most of her stash of the blockchain’s token by way of staking rewards.
Akridge was hit with a lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s Superior Court docket on Dec. 24 by Elisa Rossi, who alleged her ex-husband earned “tens of millions of {dollars} in staking rewards” from Solana (SOL) tokens she claims are hers, with out her data.
The criticism mentioned Akridge was Solana Labs’ principal engineer after serving to set up the corporate in 2018. He’s now CEO of the cybersecurity firm Cyber Grant.
Rossi’s go well with alleged that the pair’s March divorce settlement break up possession of SOL they owned, however Rossi claimed Akridge “took benefit of the numerous disparity in experience in cryptocurrencies” to maintain management of the tokens and proceed incomes staking rewards from them.
Her criticism alleged Akridge “merely gave Ms. Rossi’s Solana pockets authority over three accounts that contained the Solana tokens,” which allowed him “to secretly proceed staking Ms. Rossi’s Solana tokens and incomes tens of millions of {dollars} in staking rewards till Ms. Rossi found the deception in Might 2024.”
The variety of SOL tokens at challenge and the sum allegedly stolen are redacted within the criticism, however it does point out the sum is over $25,000, and an accompanying submitting talked about “the numerous sums at challenge” in a request to seal elements of the lawsuit.
An excerpt of Rossi’s lawsuit has blacked out the variety of SOL tokens and the quantity they’re value. Supply: Superior Court docket of San Francisco
SOL hit an all-time peak of $263 final month and has still gained over 80% this 12 months to commerce at $194, as Solana has performed host to quite a few 2024’s standard crypto developments — namely memecoins.
Solana customers can earn extra SOL by way of staking, the place SOL is locked up, used to validate the blockchain’s transactions and are given SOL as a reward.
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In her criticism, Rossi claimed that between Might and December, she despatched “at least a dozen” textual content messages to Akridge concerning the staking rewards.
The go well with claimed Akridge “made clear he had no real interest in returning Ms. Rossi’s staking rewards to her, at one level laughing in her face and saying, ‘good luck getting these staking rewards from me.’”
Akridge didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark despatched through LinkedIn. Cyber Grant was contacted for remark. Info on Akridge’s legal professionals was not out there on the time of writing.
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