Jared Grey, SushiSwap’s newly-appointed CEO, has responded to the recent allegations of being involved in crypto scams of the past, and engaging in bestiality with a horse.
In a detailed blog post Grey addressed the claims, stating that he rejects all of the accusations brought against him by Twitter user “yannickcrypto.eth”. On October 11th, days after Grey became Head Chef, the user accused Grey of scamming people in association with a project called ALQO, of which Grey was CEO at the time.
“yannickcrypto.eth”, a former ALQO community member, alleged that, soon after becoming CEO in 2021, Grey introduced a web wallet that was used to steal 70% of the total token supply from ALQO users. The twitter user also claimed that Grey later rebranded ALQO to “EONS” in order “to kill traces”.
Hey @SushiSwap how it comes you elect @JaredGrey, a scammer and con artist, as the new CEO?
— yannickcrypto.eth (@YannickCrypto) October 10, 2022
Here some details about Grey:
Grey acknowledged the event of the theft, but claims that he was not involved. According to him, an ALQO insider on the technical team “used tech vulnerabilities to exploit the wallet and steal funds”. Grey further underlined that he “participated in the investigation of the theft and the refunding process for community members”.
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Grey also addressed the claim that he scammed people and engaged in copyright infringement through another of his companies, MultiPlex PC, which sold hardware parts. For this, he blamed an SEO firm that he had contracted, which allegedly broke the law without his knowledge.
“After realizing they had engaged in copyright infringement, I tried to remedy the situation. But, the SEO company had already created the damage, and I tried to reach a reasonable compromise with the firm that suffered from copyright infringement in the best way possible,” he said.
yannickcrypto.eth’s accusations didn’t stop there, as they gave an account of Grey scamming his customers, together with developer partner Kevin Collmer, by asking projects to pay 1 BTC in fees to be able to list their coins on a promised future exchange called Bitfineon, which never went online. According to the user, Grey stole around 20 BTC this way.
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Grey’s rebuttal to this claim stated: “Bitfineon was an exchange I operated that was part of the EONS/ALQO ecosystem. The exchange had a 1 BTC technical integration fee to cover developer costs and operational onboarding to integrate and onboard new tokens. Bitfineon was operational and did launch and was a functional digital asset exchange that onboarded several new tokens under my supervision as CEO.”
Finally, Grey was forced to deny having engaged in bestiality with a horse.
“Jared Grey is a common name – there is a male porn star with my same name. He asked me to buy my Twitter handle and reached out to me a few years ago. The video of the horse fingering, if it exists (I’ve never seen it before), is probably a video produced by Jared Grey, the porn star, and not myself,” he asserted.
Never-ending SushiSwap woes
Grey became CEO of SushiSwap in early October, becoming the fourth Head Chef the protocol has had since its inception in 2020 after 84% of the community approved the appointment in a governance vote. The three prior Head Chefs, some of whom were only de facto Head Chefs, all exited the position in a haze of fireworks.
The most scandalous exit was the very first. “Nomi”, SushiSwap’s anonymous first Head Chef, stole $14 million worth of ETH just 10 days after the protocol’s launch. They then disappeared, only to come back a week later with an apology. Nomi returned the money before once again disappeared.
Then there was “0xMaki”, another pseudonymous SushiSwap Head Chef, who stepped down after internal drama between them and Joseph Delong, the CTO of SushiSwap at the time.
Frog Nation’s Daniele Sesta tried to take over, however, it was soon discovered that he had close ties to Michael Patryn, the co-founder of Quadrigacx, a Canadian crypto exchange that operated a Ponzi scheme. Sesta was released soon after.
Grey’s appointment, and the following $5.2 million investment from asset management giant GoldenTree, promised a new life for SushiSwap, which has found itself falling behind its competitors in recent months. However, the protocol is once again clouded by controversy.
On the Flipside
- While it’s unclear who is to be believed in this story, there have been no known, official accusations or cases levied against Grey until now.
- Some community members have concerns about Grey’s relationship with GoldenTree after the asset management firm invested $5.2 million soon following his appointment as Head Chef.
Why You Should Care
SushiSwap has been trying to pick itself up in recent months. The appointment of Jared Grey as Head Chef and the subsequent cash injection from GoldenTree sounded promising at first, but the recent allegations have made the SushiSwap community think twice. If the accusations turn out to be true, it could prove to be one of the final nails in the coffin for the SushiSwap community.
