Meld Insiders Reveal Details Behind the Failed Project

00:00
In late 2024, the MELD project decided to close its doors. And this was a massive surprise to everyone because they had raised so much money. They did it through their ISPO and it was the biggest ISPO within the Cardano space where people could delegate their ADA to the state pools that they had. And in return, they’ll earn some of these MELD tokens. But they had to give up the ADA rewards and they managed to raise a massive amount of ADA through that process.

00:28
And they also managed to raise lots of funds through private sales as well. So they managed to get all these funds. And when they announced that they were going to cease operations due to the lack of funds and lack of adoption of the platform, this was a massive surprise to everyone. So we don’t know exactly what’s happening here. But the team from Cerabris have been continuing to do an investigation, a deep dive investigation to track and analyze where all the funds.

00:55
have been going, what they potentially been spent on, etc, etc. Now, they didn’t have all the bits of information and thankfully, some former insiders, employees, well, actually founders of Meld have decided to give the Xerberus team some more information, some more insights into their inner operations in the early days. And this is Thomas, Lisa and Nicholas, who were all a part of the Meld founding team.

01:24
back when the project first started. And it’s really good that they came on to this X-Base that I held late last year in December to talk about what was going on behind the scenes and give the Cerabus team just that more information so that they could do a deeper diversification. Now, I have to say this X-Base was a little bit choppy, the audio is a little bit off, so I cut it up a little bit just to make it a little bit more refined for you guys. But if you want to listen to the full interview.

01:52
put a link down below to it on so you can listen to it on X and download it directly from there. But this is a slightly more condensed version of it. Plus I’ve added in a little bit of commentary as well. So like I said, check out the links down below if you want to see the original recording. But let’s get into this one here. We first start off with Simon giving us a recap of exactly what’s been happening in the space here and where they’re up to in their investigation.

02:19
So it is extremely important to understand that melt is an enormous case. So people know our Dhano report, I think it was about 30 pages. When we finished the melt report, and I wouldn’t, this course is still a bit out till we really put it live for everybody to read, but it will probably be in the hundreds of pages. So the melt is probably the largest case we have ever worked on. And so I still want to make sure that audience understands this is not a final.

02:49
stricter space for talking what is what has happened with milk but it’s really just another checking with the community. I think that’s very important. So we are still in a space of speculation but what has really changed is that we have gotten a ton of off-chain information that now feeds into our research and this has been extremely critical because of the really the outstanding complexity of melt. So when you look about the melt token you not only have a token that

03:19
but you also have a token that has been reminted. So there’s more than one melt token really canonically. And this has been one of our biggest challenges so far. It has helped us to further develop our algorithms. So I just wanted to make sure that we are here in a check-in, really not in the final conclusion, but this trade-off piece is really about how the off-chain information that we have gotten kind of informs the further investigation and also some of very, very interesting.

03:49
I think for the community very interesting leads that I think Lisa will speak about. I don’t want to go ahead of myself because I think I will ping pong this between me and Lisa because that’s really where the threat starts. No, no, yeah. I can just tell a little bit about the information from when the ISPO and the token sale was happening. So the ISPO…

04:17
raised around 7.7 million ADA. Of course, at that point, ADA was worth a lot. So I think at the height of the ISPO and towards the end, that 7.7 million ADA was around 23 million US dollars. So alone, the ISPO raised an enormous amount. What we do know is that it wasn’t sold at that point, and it was sold much later. But I’ll get back to that in a minute.

04:47
Also, the private sale of the mel token raised $30 million. Around $20 million of it was in USD stablecoin, which I know Xerberus tracked on that initial wallet. But additionally, some was paid in ADA and possibly also some in fiat. And yeah. So.

05:16
Even if the ADA was sold at a much later stage, say at three cents or something like that, which was more towards the bottom price of ADA, that should comprise around two million and with the 30 million it’s around 32 million at least.

05:40
Yeah, and I can confirm having run the private sale that there was indeed some fiat coming into the private sale. So it was predominantly stablecoin, predominantly USDT, but also some USDC, also some DAI. And then in addition, ADA and fiat, no Bitcoin.

06:05
Now this next part of the interview talks about meld company structure, originally incorporated in Singapore. So let’s listen to what Lise has to say here. Well, I could add on that a little bit just about meld. And as I said, you know, being there right from the start, I know that the original meld company was called meld labs incorporated in Singapore in April.

06:35
2021, that company in the autumn of 2022 changed name to Sogo Labs. Sogo means meld in Japanese. I had long left since then. I’d left in February 2022, but I was still sort of keeping an eye

07:04
three financial statements. For a long time, they only submitted for the first year, which was 2021 to 2022, so starting April, ending 31st March 2022. And that’s an audited financial statement logged with Acra, which is like a registry in Singapore. Anyone can go in and pay to get these reports. So it’s not exclusive in that sense.

07:33
And this first report logs 2.9 million approximately operating loss for that first financial year. It doesn’t mention anything about income from a private sale or an IASPO. It does, however, mention an entity called Melt Foundation, which we are pretty certain had not been established. We’re not certain that there is even a Melt Foundation.

08:02
from our findings, but it says that Sogo is holding digital assets for around 16.5 million US dollars for the Meld Foundation. What we can also say is that what we believe is the entity that Sogo was referring to as the Meld Foundation is a Cayman Island entity.

08:31
registered as a foundation but actually registered as a VASP. But I have to be clear that that’s difficult to confirm because entities incorporated in the Cayman Islands come with a lot of confidentiality. So it’s not so easy to identify but we are quite certain that every time

08:59
Mel Foundation has been referred to in this year-end account, that it’s referring to an actual VASP incorporated in Cayman.

09:11
Just for the community and for myself, what exactly is Avash in terms of that? Virtual asset service provider. Gotcha. It’s a type of entity that requires licensing and reporting to the jurisdictional regulator, but it allows you to simply, well, in simple terms, you can on-ramp crypto and you can offer on-fiat.

09:39
So it would be a very smooth entity to receive any crypto and deploy it in Fiat to wherever you want. Go on, Sami. I mean, that is the very basic operations of a VASP. The fact that it’s also in Cayman means that only the Cayman authorities know exactly

10:06
the ins and outs and unless you are, for example, law enforcement or unless you have a particular requisite, Cayman doesn’t give out that information. So again, we have to be careful with how we explain it is that we’re not saying with certainty, but we are at least from what we understand and from our own investigations.

10:36
That is what, when the year end accounts, the first year end accounts refers to the Meld Foundation, it is in fact a Cayman registered BASP. Gotcha. Allow me, Pete, to jump in here because I wanted to maybe help the community to understand why this is important, right? What Thomas just said is that instead of the foundation, which is a non-profit,

11:06
most of it, right? I mean, the specific other jurisdiction, but usually, right, the nonprofit entity that helps the ecosystem to develop, they choose to incorporate a vast, which is a vast is a corporation form that was invented early on in the time of crypto to get a handle on things like crypto exchanges, you know, that’s like that, that would be or some other service provider in crypto, like a market maker or something like that, depending on the jurisdiction. So that’s already a bit odd, right? And I think that needs to be

11:35
I want to highlight that to make people understand why this is important. This is weird. Why did you register? Why do you say you create a foundation, but then you register a vehicle which is for profit and is there to provide services? And then also to Lisa’s point with Shogun Labs, I think Lisa, maybe can you explain why this is weird that they set up a Singaporean entity?

12:04
point out that as a VASP and as that it would have shareholders and the shareholders, of course, would demand that there was that that was what they would expect profit. And certainly if there was profit would demand for dividend. So it goes against everything that Simon just explains it goes against everything that a foundation stands for, because you would have you would have shareholders inside the VASP structure.

12:30
that would be expecting and as I said, if not demanding, for dividend on profit. And that’s not the job of a foundation at all. So I just wanted to clarify, I didn’t mean to interject there, but I wanted to clarify that. Amazing clarification. I think this is really important. So why is he building that? And now Lisa, I think you mentioned Shogo Labs and I think this is also very interesting. Why is it, why do you suspect it is in Singapore and why is it so noteworthy?

13:02
Well, Soga Labs was the original melt company. It was the company that ran the ISPO. It was the company that ran the private sale. When it was started in Singapore, it was because Singapore was a sort of good jurisdiction for, I would say, a crypto company, especially back then.

13:29
I don’t know exactly if there’s any other reason for it being in Singapore, but that’s just the way it was decided on back then. I can get back to a little bit about the financial statements, or if you wanted to clarify anything, Simon, about your question. I’m not sure if I quite understood what you wanted me to tackle.

13:58
So there was an original Melt company, right? And then there… Yes. I’m not sure how much you want to go out because I know there’s also some, maybe some legal things there, but because I know the case, I just feel I want to push you to say something. So there was a change in incorporation, right? Like something changed about the core companies, right? Yes, there was a change in the name, first of all, from Melt Labs to Soga Labs, but it’s still the same company.

14:26
But much later on, because actually in the financial statements for 2022 and 2023, they are unaudited and alongside the financial statements for 2023-24, those two financial statements were logged with Acura only in September this year. So they haven’t been available until recently and I didn’t even know they existed.

14:54
until after Ken Oling’s announcement. And when I checked, I saw that they were there. But in those statements, it then suddenly mentions proceeds from private sale for around 29.6 million US dollars. It also mentions a disbursement to this foundation.

15:23
of 14 million US dollars and this is in 2022-23 and an operating loss for this year two of operation of 6.5 million US dollars approximately. It mentions that Sogo Labs owns Meld X UAB, Meld Finance UAB which is both Lithuanian companies which I believe are the companies related to Meld Finance.

15:50
and also Meld Digital Limited in the Cayman, which is not the entity that we were referring to as the potential or possible foundation. But it seems to be more of a holding company, so possibly this Meld Digital Limited is the sole shareholder of this Meld Limited that we think is what is referred to as the foundation.

16:20
Now we do have to note that the lack of actual foundation that operates as a non-profit is really significant because it means now that as a for-profit company they could use those funds for whatever they want to please the shareholders or owners of the company. So it works in a very different way and is quite significant legally as well. But Thomas continues the conversation here.

16:49
the movement and change of entities in Singapore. So as Lisa carefully explained, MELD remained up until relatively recently as the entity in Singapore, although it changed its name to Sogo. But earlier this year, essentially the shareholders in Sogo, and there was…

17:18
There seems to be a withdrawal of assets from Sogo and placed into a different Singaporean company. It’s the same jurisdiction, Singapore. This new company is called Metafinance PTE Limited. It was Metafinance that Ken Oling was using to try or it was that company that Ken was

17:47
attempting to raise more funds. We’ve seen an investor deck and we’ve seen material that he was circulating earlier this year. So there are a lot of unanswered questions why the entity that ran the ISPO and most importantly signed legal contracts or sales purchase agreements

18:16
everything was essentially just stripped out. And so it seems handed over to Metafinance. If anyone is aware of English law and Singapore is based on English law, you need to have a very good reason if you are to strip a company of its assets and to hand those assets over to another company. A good example could be that the company that’s inheriting these assets has perhaps licensing, for example, which is needed.

18:45
But there would be a procedure, there would be a very legal procedure that the company that wants to essentially empty it or to take out its assets and to put those assets over to another entity, they would have to follow a certain route. We don’t see that any procedures have been followed. It’s simply someone has been acting like it’s their own fiefdom and decided that one day whatever is in so-go.

19:15
which was or AKA Meld, no longer is going to have any of those assets and they are all going to be attributed to this new company, Metafinance PT Limited. Like I said, there are many questions that we are still waiting for professionals to answer on.

19:39
So again, I can’t comment with any certainty, but what I can say for you guys, with these listeners, everyone needs to know is that there was a clear withdrawal from Sogo, including the shareholders of Sogo. And that withdrawal was then mirrored into an injection of assets into this, into this metafinance. Why that happened?

20:09
That’s a very good question. But it certainly did happen, and that was earlier this year. Thomas, allow me to contextualize that. Sorry, Peter. Let me just contextualize that for the community, because what I commented on was the server’s account under the space, a graphic that was promoted by Melt, which is a triangular structure where they say they have a MeltX, they have a Melt Neobank, and a Melt Foundation, and Sogo Labs. And that’s a straightforward way I would imagine it.

20:39
once you start looking into these companies and actually asking that that thing exists, what you end up with is, and I all you, you guys all know the meme of the conspiracy theorists with all the red dots. That’s basically how you feel once you start looking into it. So there are a foundation which doesn’t kind of exist. Instead there are two Cayman Islands corporation, none of which is a foundation. Then they are a finance. Then there happens to be some sort of asset stripping whereby a new company is created and assets are being

21:08
other offshore companies or other sidearms of it in Lithuania and other jurisdictions. And this is now really interesting because it looks so different when you look into it in detail. And one thing that you, I hope you guys hear out of this conversation already is that Melt is a uniquely complex case. Wherever you start pulling a thread, it gets very, very complicated with a lot of sub-companies. So whoever did that, or was whoever mined.

21:38
Was working on it was surely not to make it easy and I just want to had one of the last question to you guys at the founders and I know it’s very important and I wanted a community and send it if you’re willing to talk about that in which way these time nodes might have might have not occurred with your own departure in melt or if there’s any correlation to it. And this next part of the conversation Thomas talks about why at least Thomas and Nicholas founding members of meld.

22:04
Actually left or were asked to leave and this is just a really terrible situation but let’s listen to this. Yeah so there’s also also includes Nicholas who’s attending the space as well so the three of us we all departed in quarter one twenty twenty two the actual official date that we left was.

22:31
Lee was at the, someone might have to help me because it’s now a few years ago, but the 14th of March or the 15th of March. I think so. 2022. I think so. Yeah. But, um, mid-March, uh, for sure, that’s when we officially left. Up until that point, there was one entity and that was Meld Labs, PT limited, the same entity that had engaged with the private sale investors, the same entity that had run the ISPO.

23:00
one entity. After we left, this is when this web of complex structures started to take shape. And the further that we went towards the present time right now, the more complex it’s become. So again, there are so many questions. Why?

23:29
What was the purpose? I have personal questions. I mean, I’m a very, at least I like to think, and I try very hard to be ethical and moral in everything that I do, not just with work and also personally. And sure, I’m human, so if I make a mistake and if I recognize that, then I rectify that mistake.

23:56
I will say that I before co-founding Meld, I knew Ken for a long time. I didn’t see anything that I see of Ken today. I didn’t see from before. It’s remarkable. It is. When I think back on it, because how can someone, how can someone disguise their true intentions or who they really are so well? Again, it’s a very good question. And I’ve had people that

24:25
have offered their opinion on what exactly Ken is or his personality traits. When we went into 2022, having finished the sale and the ISPO, the brand was so widely known. There had been so much positivity. We were all just… I mean, I remember that Christmas, 21.

24:52
We all felt literally that we had conquered the world and we were so excited for what we were going to be rolling into come 22 and onwards. But at that point and certainly when we left there was only one entity. And since then there has become more and more complexities. One might say that these are purposely done to disguise whatever is being

25:22
transacted or dealt with inside, but that’s again, my personal speculation. But of course, you know, it makes sense that, you know, if you’re going to, if, if someone wants to try and do something, um, you try and cover your tracks. And certainly in, in, in, in, in the corporate world, the best way to cover your tracks is to make it incredibly complicated. So were you guys asked to leave, let go, or did you decide to leave on your own accord?

25:54
Well, let me explain how we found out. Yeah, I guess because that part is quite interesting and it’s never been told in a forum like this, but on the 1st of January 2022, a colleague of mine who is the head of design sent me a message

26:23
want me or someone to tell him if someone knew of something happening like this. So he was going to tell me that he had heard from Hai, who was one of the other co-founders. I mean, we were five co-founders. He had heard from Hai that Ken Oling wanted to get rid of me, Thomas and Nicholas. And that basically there was a kind of a plot.

26:52
to do so and then I contacted Hai on Telegram because it was very late in Vietnam and he confirmed it to me that yes he had known of it for some time now and he was surprised that we didn’t know and no communication had been made or deal been made or whatever and then Thomas you can maybe explain what you did next because I told you.

27:20
I suppose between the three of us, myself, Lisa and Nicholas, I suppose I would say that at least at the time I would have said that I knew Ken the best. So I said, let me get hold of Ken. He was on holiday with his family in Hawaii. So I looked at the timing and made sure that it was not too early, but as soon as it was eight o’clock in the morning, I called him. And he picked up.

27:51
And I just said, you know, there’s some something really odd going on because Lisa has heard from a head of design and also Hai is confirming that you want us out, we being Nick, myself and Lisa. Ken was basically in

28:16
Well, the way he responded, I think his easiest way to say was that he was like in shock and said, no, no, no, no. What on earth are you talking about? It was just, you know, you know, clearly rebuffing, which immediately calmed me down. And I then finished speaking with Ken and said to Lisa that, yeah, this is awful. And I got quite cross with head of design because I said, you know, we just, we’ve worked so hard.

28:45
And we just had a, you know, 10 days or whatever relaxation ready for the new year. And, you know, we really don’t need this toxicity. This is just, you know, this is BS basically. And anyway, I sort of sat down and composed myself just, you know, trying to sort of get my head around it. In my mind, you know, what Lisa had been told was just BS, it was wrong.

29:13
Ken had told me very clearly that, you know, there’s absolutely no way that he want to get rid of us. And I remember he said to me, why would I want to get rid of you? You are my friend. Look what you’ve, look what we’ve done together. Look what we’re in, think about the future. Think about what, what Meld is going to do. So I sat down about 45 minutes later, Ken calls again. So I pick up, he doesn’t even say hello. He doesn’t say anything. The first thing he said was, it’s correct. I want you out.

29:42
You’re fired.

29:45
as cold as that.

29:50
That’s just shocking. I don’t understand. One phone call a few minutes early, he’s like, no, deny it all. And then- Denying, deny it. And then just flips. Yeah, absolutely. Well, more than deny, we agreed that as soon as we were back from the holidays, we were going to sort out this toxicity, because it will not stand. It will not be a melt. I remember just thinking that. And I remember coming off and I said to Lisa, you know, honestly, Lisa, because we, you know-

30:20
For those that actually, if you don’t know, it probably makes sense. But Lisa and I, we’re business partners, but also married. So that’s why we were speaking together. I said to Lisa, honestly, we really don’t need this type of nonsense. So in my mind, Ken had just calmed, well, not calmed, but had given me the reassurance that I needed and I apologize for disturbing him, etc. etc.

30:50
And then, yeah, it was about, as I said, about 45 minutes later, he called again and just, you know, without even a prelude, just straight out, just done. Which of course, you then, you know, it comes totally left field. And I don’t know if anyone has ever experienced something like that, but it’s rather weird. It’s very weird. And it takes the breath out of you. It is such odd behavior. And at this point, hi, it’s still in the company.

31:20
But then he, he, yes, he did CTO. Did he get kicked out or did he leave or was, did he leave after? And what, and what was happening with the project at this point in time? Like it was this when Mel decided to not deliver anything on Cardano and there was that mystery, no, I mean, vulnerability or whatever it was that’s on Cardano and they couldn’t deliver on Cardano. I mean, that came much later actually. So, uh,

31:48
Just to add to what Thomas was saying, my suspicion has always been that in those 45 minutes between the first and second phone call, that Ken got hold of Hai and Hai said he’d spilled all the beans to me, so that Ken must have realized that there was no going back and therefore he just then decided he couldn’t string us along and pretend. And yeah. But…

32:14
I mean, I question the timing because we still had to actually roll out TGE, which was for the 27th of January. But, you know, to the, again, not to sound facetious in any way, but to our credit, we stayed very loyal to Meld, made sure that TGE was a success. My rationale was regardless of what Ken thinks or wants,

32:41
I have a duty which is to get TGE done. Both Nick and I had a specific task to double check and triple check everybody’s wallets to make sure that the vesting would be smooth. And that’s what we did. So, yeah, January was a very strange month because, you know, Meld was at its very top. I would say that.

33:10
At the beginning of 2022, Meld never regained. Meld had all the opportunities, the way I see it, and Hai did leave after us. Again, it’s not clear under what circumstances Hai left. I think to answer your other point was, when did Meld really start not delivering? I would say it’s about spring.

33:38
2022 where they were sort of working with this Ackermann Bridge, which seemed to take a lot of resource, a lot of attention. And then after that, it was never really very clear when Core product would be released and actually even really to the right to the very end, Core product was still, in my opinion, something that was never properly adhered to.

34:04
Nicholas, I know you’ve joined the speakers there as well, so I’m sure you want to chime in and say something as well. Yeah, I mean, obviously, just to corroborate everything that’s been said so far and, you know, just reaffirm that this is pretty factual. I think one of the things, and this is maybe a little subjective, but just a bit of commentary from my side, Thomas was…

34:34
instrumental in me becoming involved in the Mel project way before the incorporation in April of 2021. You know we were working on this some months prior to that before we led into that. I think part of the challenge that myself and Thomas brought to Ken was also the fact that we were asking for things to

35:04
what we saw as a correct manner in those early days. So, you know, we pushed very hard to try and get a recognizable CFO into the team. That was resisted, you know, pretty vehemently by Ken. He wanted ultimate control over all of these kind of bits. And I think that was possibly one of the things that started that.

35:30
aside because we were looking to run a very sound and you know solid business with integrity and and that didn’t you know had had we known what was coming then these would have been much bigger red flags than they appeared at the time I think that’s probably all I’ve got to say as far as that goes but yeah I mean with hindsight it’s a wonderful thing you can see a lot more

36:00
Yeah, you see a lot more clearly what that path was. I think the other important thing Thomas just touched on was how the whole project sort of seemed to drift from its core purpose and mission, which was to bring DeFi lending and borrowing to the masses. And it wandered off on what seemed to be a variety of different sort of almost like side hustles to some extent.

36:29
because they were further money making exercise or at least perceived to be. And that continued right the way through, you know, the whole build out of the meld blockchain and so forth seems to have been a money driven decision as opposed to a true commercial decision for the good of the projects in the company.

36:54
All right, so we still have funds missing. Millions. Yeah, millions unaccounted for. Millions, millions. Yeah, yeah. God. OK. And we might have a VASP. Oh, no, sorry, we do have a VASP in Cayman that was incorporated on the same day as Mel Digital Limited. Now, Mel Digital Limited.

37:22
is a holding company, that’s its status. But what’s the likelihood of two entities in Cayman with Meld in their name being incorporated on the same day, which I believe was the 22nd of November 2022, certainly November 2022, but I think it’s the 22nd.

37:47
Now, in the reports, which again, I stress are publicly available, anyone can go to Acra, anyone can pay that fee, and anyone can download these reports. And they will see that in the latest, which are albeit unordered, but signed by Daniel Kuhn, who was up until recently the director and also a shareholder.

38:16
Those reports show that Sogo, aka Meld in Singapore, owned Meld Digital Limited in Cayman. Meld Digital Limited in Cayman incorporated on the same day as Meld Limited, which is the VASP, which is what we believe is the foundation. So yes, there are millions still unaccounted for, and there is seemingly a VASP in the picture.

38:46
and that VAS would be totally within its right to take one asset, a digital asset, and if it wanted to off-ramp it into Fiat and point it to any bank account.

39:00
salmon go ahead.

39:04
Thank you. I just wanted to move the topic maybe to the next step because I just looked at the time and I see that at least I have to leave in the next after 15 minutes. And I was just checking the agenda, right? There is an event that needs to be contextualized. It was first popcorn and later verified by us that there was a major sell-off happening of mailed tokens.

39:33
there is a suspicion where these tokens came from. I just wanted to check in with Lise and Thomas if you’re okay to talk about that or if that’s… I think we can talk around it a little bit. So at this point, I mean, at our next space, we can probably reveal more, but it’s just because the three of us have some confidentiality. Yeah, I mean…

40:02
Yes, I agree. But let’s proceed, Simon. And of course, I think the more that we can sort of disclose, the better. But we’ll nudge in if there’s something that maybe we need to wait for a further space. Yes. So there was the and again, very grateful to Popcorn. He’s a very good researcher. He found out that ahead of the major price collapse,

40:32
a wallet started selling tokens and these tokens were traced back to a wallet which is very likely to be a core member of the mail team if not can all it himself. There is some indicators via an ADA handle but there’s also what we confirm from Xerberus that these tokens are minting wallet tokens. So these tokens have never been bought on an exchange before, right? They are fresh off the minting price.

41:02
have been sold and there is quite some evidence that this could be a major, that this sale of has a major meaning in the world of the, of KEMP as there has been some arguments about ownership of a BOSS token and everything else. And that it could have been that maybe this was the trigger.

41:30
for Ken to basically at least damage the project by liquidating certain assets. And that could have been the token. So again, I don’t want to say too much because there are NDAs and this is also why we cannot say everything that we know because we want to keep the legal proceeding intact and want to honor all our commitments here. But I don’t know, Lacey Thomas, if you want to add something to that. Yeah. I think what we could also say in parallel because we’re also very interested in.

42:00
into some other entities that have not been formally identified as being part of the meld corporate structure. But looking at who incorporated these other entities in, for example, Singapore. I’ve got one in mind that there was another Singaporean company where, you know, it was

42:26
It shared Daniel Kung, which if everyone can remember from the Meld website was purported to be the CEO of Meld Daniel Kung again, you can find out by going on to Acre. I have to stress this is public information Search on Daniel Kung and you’ll find out that he has lent his name to many many Companies most of them have been struck off. So he’s got like this footprint of where he steps in as

42:53
either the CEO or sometimes as a shareholder. You have to question why because out of all the companies that he’s been associated with in Singapore, most of them get struck off or they’re no longer active. They’ve got some checkered past, I think is the best way to put it. What Simon was saying about this

43:21
this wallet that still seems to be in control of Sogo or AKA Meld, that was part of this or seems to be part of this cascade that essentially saw the token totally collapse. And then the announcement that came swiftly thereafter, there are other entities that

43:51
the hallmarks of Ken. Even when I’ve looked at the investor deck, it’s the same font. If anyone can picture the mailed white paper, well, imagine that with the same diagrams, as I said, the same font. It’s the look and feel, precisely the same, just with a different company’s name. So are there other companies that

44:20
been incorporated after Meld? Have they been somehow, you know, have funds come out of Meld and gone into them? Question mark. Yeah, I mean, again, I’m just speculating here, but that’s, you know, I believe that whatever might or might not have happened with this sell-off, there will be a purpose behind it. And this is what we’re still trying to find out.

44:51
Simon. Yeah, I like to jam in here. And again, this is very clear speculation. We just want to update you guys. So what Thomas was just describing, and we also see some hints in the on-chain structure is that there might’ve been money moved around into the site, which could make sense, right? We look at a very complex corporate structure, which is not a good sign. If you guys remember the FTX.

45:20
research when people realized that the FDX company structure was more complex than the one from JP Morgan. But once you try to do things in a, let’s say by cutting corners, you need these very complex legal structures. And that could have been also the case when it comes to these other ventures that pop left and right and that now had also funding and it looked and felt like it was made out of the melt documentation. Again, it’s a speculation. But this is

45:48
I just want to contextualize that in a larger frame. This is why this investigation is so complex because somebody really took effort here to hide the traces, which is very different from the case, just to compare that to a case like we had it with Ryan and Ardana. Ardana never tried to hide the traces. They were doing it within two transactions away from fundraising. They were already intermingling funds. So this is a bit more sophisticated in, to use that word.

46:17
And what we probably will take is we will take a longer time to really get the hands on all of that and to cross-reference it with the cross-chain information, the off-chain information that we have. And also we need to have some legal proceedings being done first so we can disclose all information. However, from my experience, and this is not just my, Simon Peter’s opinion, there might be a very special case here because usually when you have crypto companies…

46:45
They are incorporated in places where they’re legally fortified. Right? In the case of Ardana, it was a Cayman Islands foundation or a corporation that had absolutely nothing to do with the token. So it’s very hard to bring forward legal claims. I see a melt because they choose to incorporate in Singapore, which is an outstanding jurisdiction. That’s a country where you have an easy, or at least where you have a due process and you have a fair court.

47:14
And so actually there might be options, but again, we have to evaluate them for the, for the token holders to bring up one or the other claim, especially if the accusations turn out to be true, that there are funds left and that can be seized by a court. So I just wanted to, again, just will take a long time, but maybe Thomas, you want to want to jump in here? Yeah, I was going to say, and if, and if it’s shown.

47:40
that funds that were legitimately brought into meld for legitimate meld purposes have in fact been funneled elsewhere for the benefit of other companies that the market are unaware of. Essentially, it’s like meld funds are for meld, period. That’s what it ought to have been. If it is proven,

48:09
some funds in fact have been withdrawn and have been put into other entities that are actually, in fact, Ken’s, again, this would be this right now is just an opinion, it’s speculative that I’m saying, but if it’s proven that there are other entities that Ken has a role in, and Meld funds have been directed there instead of actually being directed on what Meld was meant

48:38
That would be a very serious situation because essentially what Ken is saying is that Meld ran out of funds. Could it be that Meld ran out of funds or he’s saying that because some of the funds actually that were Meld and should have remained Meld were actually positioned and deployed elsewhere into companies that have nothing to do with Meld. And that’s what we’re trying to…

49:08
Sorry Thomas, could I just chip in on that point because obviously it was made public that investments into other projects were being made by Meld literally days if not just a few weeks before this devastating announcement was made of the closure. Armour being one of them? Correct.

49:32
I just wanted to add because I didn’t get quite to that point earlier, but in the financial statements for 23-24, which runs up to 31st March 24, it states that accumulated losses for the MELD group, which is under Sogo Labs, for the three years as being 11.4 million US dollars.

50:02
we know that 32 million at least were raised. So that leaves around 20 million unaccounted for. So that’s kind of the number we’re getting at. You would think that if they’d spent 32 million over three years, that would be popping up in their accounts, but it doesn’t. So it’s black and white on their own logged financial statements.

50:30
that their accumulated losses is 11.4 million approximately. So then the big question is where’s the rest of the funds? So I just wanted to get that figure out there. And also on the topic of same Armour Wallet which they made an announcement that they invested into just a few weeks before the closing down announcement.

50:58
I’ve been contacted by several people who’s offering to help with investigations, private investigators who want to contribute because they’d invested into Meld, you know, and also other people in the ecosystem who has a role in investigating all sorts of going ons. As part of that, we actually looked into the Armour Telegram account.

51:26
the Telegram group, which I thought was suspicious because I was blocked from that Telegram group, which I thought, why am I blocked? But I managed to get in there. I went up to the first post ever been made in that group and who is the first person who enters the group? It’s Ken Oling. And then a few days later, as action has started happening in that group, he pops in again and says,

51:52
Oh, I’ve just come across this project. It looks interesting. It’s like such a cringe moment because it’s obviously he was the first person in the group, establishing the group, then goes out, then things happen. And then he pretends to come in as just a random investor discovering the project some days later. Which makes us wonder.

52:19
was actually Armour an idea that has received funding from Meld to get going. And this is a very important question. Well, obviously, Meld has announced an investment into it. So that’s… At that point, but before then, prior to that, that’s what I mean. Prior to that. Exactly. I don’t know whether, Nicholas and Lisa, you…

52:43
it’s the right time to maybe, should we mention the other company that we feel is actually associated or we think, again, must stress, think is associated with Ken.

52:57
Nick? I don’t know if it adds anything to this conversation right now, so maybe not. I mean, obviously, you feel free, though. I mean, there’s no… I think perhaps we could wait a little bit. I mean, people can also do some research there, but yes, what we can say is that there is another well-known company that the sole shareholder of that company is Daniel Kung.

53:26
Who is also or was a shareholder in so go labs and if anyone goes to anyone. Yeah if anyone goes to Akron search search under Daniel Cone and all the companies associated with Daniel Cone then the company is that. Now if you want to look into all those other companies I do have the lookup reports of these other companies as well so you can have a look into them.

53:54
find out what other projects they were possibly involved in. And you can make your own decisions from that. But it’s like Thomas said, it’s all public accessible information through their lookups. I’ll put the links down below for that as well. So if you guys do want to look it up yourselves to verify this information, you can. Very clear. I think I might do a search and just release that information for the public so everyone can see. And I think that would, that would be.

54:23
Yeah, well then that would be perfectly the right way round. So I would say no props there. And I do know that we’re running short of time here, and I wanted to just bring up a subject that we’ve been talking to exorbiters about, because I know there would be such a large investigation.

54:45
I know that you guys will also probably need some extra resources in order to improve your algorithms. So I don’t know Simon if you want to touch on that. Yeah, let me jump in on this one. So one challenge that we have at Xerberus right now is that Milt is an extraordinary large investigation. And the other challenge that we have is we are a startup right in the end, or to be precise a DAO now, but we’re going into the bull run.

55:15
Almost everybody works 100% of the time on the mine, Zerberos products, which is the index vaults and the blockchain, and we have a lot on our plate. So right now we run in a bit of a pickle here as we have set up, we pulled already a lot of learning out of Melt for the risk ratings itself, but that investigation here could, it is just extraordinary. Large and also there’s the option of having maybe.

55:42
a lawsuit for the token holders. And so what we are thinking about is maybe setting up a little SPV or some sort of entity in which we can raise funds from the community for that lawsuit and for the investigation to make it fully. Because again, we talk about a project that you measure in quarters, not in weeks. Right, so this is really, so we will reach out to…

56:11
the community, but I just wanted to pre-announce this, that we probably have something and we have all the legal representation that can work very well in Singapore and we have a a good lawyer friend of mine who’s very hot for that case, but we gotta make sure that it makes sense because it will take hundreds of hours of work really to finish this. And can I also just point

56:32
Out of the back of what you just said, Simon, is that if there’s, and you’ve mentioned it already, is that if there’s one jurisdiction that takes this type of, or any type of, sort of, well, fraud, I guess, would be the right way to put it. But Singapore, you don’t pick a fight in Singapore. So they’ve got a particular nose for sniffing out untoward activities.

57:02
So again, this is a big if, but if it is indeed correct, and it’s shown to be proven beyond reasonable doubt that Ken, in fact, was involved in something that was essentially illicit, why he has chosen Singapore to be his jurisdictional choice is…

57:31
That fathoms me. I don’t actually get that because it’s not a jurisdiction that takes any messing around. Probably one thing we know is that planning isn’t a strong suit of someone. Maybe. But yeah, so what I was just meaning to chime in after you, Simon, is that, yeah, and I think if there’s any jurisdiction that can actually get to the bottom,

57:58
of this Singapore is one of the one of the best ones because they take this so seriously. So as you can see, there’s a lot to go through here. There was a lot of money raised and they’re still trying to track where all those funds are going. The strange company structure, very convoluted, which makes things very suspicious there. And then also the possible other companies that were being set up and other projects being set up and potentially money’s going to different.

58:25
places. We still don’t know that for sure. Maybe they have found that in their investigations. Maybe they haven’t found anything. Maybe we won’t have any definitive answer at the moment. But hopefully the service team have continued this. It’s going to be a very large report so we can find out exactly what’s going on. I’ll chase her up with the team and see where they’re at with all this. But fingers crossed they have gotten a little bit further and can share more with us very soon.

58:53
If you guys were affected by the Meld closure, you can check out their social accounts. It’s all been deleted. All the tweets are protected. They aren’t following anyone. The websites have been taken down. Everything’s pretty much gone and has all ceased now. Tens of millions of dollars. So what were the teams at? 32 million US dollars all gone and absolutely nothing delivered. No code back to the community. Nothing open source.

59:22
It’s just nothing there for anyone to even see tangibly to see what they’ve delivered or worked on over the years. So this is a very disappointing outcome at the moment. And hopefully we can find some closure for anyone that had been speculating within the project and hoping that they would deliver something absolutely awesome, especially on the Kodano space, which they actually never did. They didn’t build one thing on the Kodano ecosystem.

59:50
They went off and built it on a Vax and wherever it is. Anyway, leave a comment down below you guys. Make sure you hit that thumbs up, like, subscribe, notification bell on your way out. And I’ll see you guys in the next video.