Wonderland's demise is also sending shockwaves through the rest of the crypto ecosystem, not least because of the interconnected nature of DeFi protocols.
A DeFi protocol has announced it is shutting down after it emerged that a convict was serving as its treasury manager.
Wonderland was plunged into chaos after a Twitter user unmasked 0xSifu as Michael Patryn. He had previously pleaded guilty to charges of credit card fraud, burglary, grand larceny and computer fraud — spending 18 months in U.S. federal prison.
Patryn was also the co-founder of the doomed crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, which collapsed after it emerged $190 million in client funds was missing. However, Patryn was not accused of wrongdoing in this case because he had stepped down from the company a couple of years earlier.
Wonderland's co-founder Daniele Sestagalli had previously explained that he knew of Patryn's past — but had believed in giving people second chances. Patryn was subsequently asked to step down from the treasury position after the project faced a storm of controversy from its community.
Last week, Sestagalli had said he wanted Wonderland to continue, but acknowledged that some people wanted the project to be "wound down and funds given back to token holders." As a result, he arranged for a community vote on its future direction.
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A Close Call
Voting closed in the early hours of Monday morning. Overall, 55% of participants said that Wonderland should not be wound down — and the remaining 45% said the project should be discontinued with treasury funds returned to their owners.
Even before voting closed on Sunday, Sestagalli had tweeted:
"Wonderland experiment is coming to an end. It is clear from the vote that the community is divided. The core and heart of Wonderland is still the community. If we cannot find agreement on whether to continue or not, it means that we failed."
Sestagalli added that he was determined to "find a new home" for those who still believe in his vision, and the Wonderland experiment as a whole.
The drama has been nothing short of calamitous for Wonderland's native TIME token. CoinMarketCap data shows that, over the past week, its value has plunged from $879 to $384 — a fall of 56%. Things get even worse if you zoom out, as TIME has now dropped 97.26% from all-time highs of $14,185.38 set on Nov. 16 last year.
Wonderland's demise is also sending shockwaves through the rest of the crypto ecosystem, not least because of the interconnected nature of DeFi protocols. One of the biggest casualties has been Terra, which has suffered outsized losses when compared with other major altcoins. LUNA is down by 7.37% over the past 24 hours. And on a seven-day timeframe, it's tumbled by 24.25% — despite the fact that all other top 20 cryptocurrencies are in green territory.
Among all the chaos, 0xSifu's Twitter account has been relatively quiet — and limited to a select few retweets in recent days. One shared post read:
"The sad part was $TIME was one of the strongest communities."
