- Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron has come under fire for supporting a memecoin inspired by his pet.
- The criticism has led to heated exchanges with the Polygon Labs chief attempting to brush off his detractors.
- The criticism follows allegations of pump-and-dump projects orchestrated by Polygon insiders.
The fun and playful nature of memecoins means they can be inspired by anything, including the pets of influential persons. A prominent example is Floki Inu, inspired by Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu, which has the same name.
With the memecoin market experiencing a resurgence in the past year, this trend appears to have taken off on the Polygon (MATIC) network. However, it has sparked controversy amid claims that it is being driven by insiders who are pumping and dumping the tokens on the community.
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Things recently got heated in the community as despite the lingering questions, Polygon (MATIC) Labs CEO Marc Boiron could actively be seen supporting a new memecoin inspired by his dog. The situation has elicited a response from Boiron, who has opted to shoot down critics.
Boiron To Critics: I Will Do What I Want
“Honestly, I’m going to have fun when I want to have fun. Nobody gets to decide when I’m allowed to have fun and when I’m not,” Boiron asserted in an X post on Wednesday, May 22.
The Polygon (MATIC) Labs chief’s statement came in response to criticism from a member of the community about the timing of his posts engaging the NIGHT memecoin community inspired by his dog.
Boiron’s response, however, did nothing to calm the storm. Responding to the Polygon Labs chief, the community member asserted:
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"Fair enough, thanks for answering a simple question like a petulant teenager. Lets me know who's captaining this ship."
It is necessary to understand the allegations facing the Polygon Labs team in order to understand the community’s reaction.
An Elephant-Sized Controversy
The recent controversy surrounding the Polygon team originates from activities surrounding ELE memecoin, a project supposedly inspired by a pet elephant owned by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, that broke onto the scene in January 2024.
In a May 20 thread on X, Aerius Labs founder Rahul Ghangas alleged that several Polygon Labs insiders, including Polygon Advisor Kenzi Wang, Polygon Labs Head of Strategy Sanket Shah, and Polygon Ventures’ Sachi Kamiya, were involved in the promotion of the project behind the scenes. Ghangas, who claimed to have been called on to build the website for the project, alleged that these named executives and their associates exploited developers for months without pay while slowly dumping on the community.
Like Boiron has done with NIGHT, at one point, Nailwal had also used the ELE image as his profile picture on X.
Polygon Labs has yet to return a DailyCoin request for comment at the time of writing.
Following a positive run in early January 2024, ELE has all but lost its value, tanking over 99% from highs of about $0.00064 to about $0.0000005778 at the time of writing, per GeckoTerminal data.
On the Flipside
- It is unclear if Boiron holds any NIGHT.
- The veracity of the claims against the Polygon Labs team is still up for debate.
Why This Matters
The recent allegations against Polygon Labs have questioned the firm’s integrity, and comments from Marc Boiron have done little to clear the doubts in the eyes of several community members. The controversy comes at a time when Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal appears to be trying to unify the community with the recent (Poly)GOONS movement.
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