In the past few months, the "head projects" in the crypto industry have been exposed one after another. The founder of io.net, which has attracted much attention a while ago, was suspected of fraud. Recently, the leading parallel EVM project Eclipse has also had problems. On May 8, Jiwoo Jun, a member of the AI crypto search engine Kaito, posted a tweet on the X platform, accusing Eclipse founder Neel Somani of sexual harassment, which attracted great attention from the industry.

Several crypto practitioners exposed Somani's misconduct

Earlier on April 27, Twitter user beachmojito (@wordsforgot) had already tweeted that Somani had committed multiple sexual harassment behaviors. "I thought this was open knowledge in the industry, but it turns out not to be the case. Ladies, please stay away from this "founder", "with a picture of a message posted by Eclipse founder Neel Salami: "What are you doing tonight?".

beachmojito The follow-up post stated that more stories had been heard after the above public appeal was issued, and then listed the following:

"Molesting multiple girls without consent is sexual assault; putting your head on a girl's lap after she refuses is sexual assault; inviting a girl to your room for a business meeting is sexual assault; feeding a girl you just met is sexual assault; texting every girl you just met who went out is a verbal assault.

......

We are in the cryptocurrency field to make money, and yes, we can all be gamblers in this industry, trying to become the next millionaire. But being a founder does not mean you can take advantage of others, and being invested by so-called first-tier investors does not mean you are better than anyone, so you can get away with doing anything to some unknown person. This does not have to happen, and it should not happen. When you brag about changing the damn world, don't be so inhuman. Karma may be late, but it is real."

This post did not get widespread fermentation a week ago. This morning, Jiwoo Jun (@jiwoo_jun) retweeted beachmojito's post saying "When he grabbed my waist and pulled me closer, even though I said 'no' and pushed him away, I knew this would happen one day."

Jiwoo Jun's tweet also triggered many women in the crypto industry who had similar experiences to her to speak out.

Crypto user Bella retweeted Jiwoo's tweet and wrote, "He invited me and another girl to dinner and said, 'It's great that I can have dinner with beauty pageant champions and models,' even though it was supposed to be a business meeting. Besides, I've encountered a lot of situations like hers and want to make my voice heard together. Sexual harassment is very common in this industry. But that doesn't mean you can treat people like this."

LSP capital's CMO @Mulan0x posted, "I met this guy at a cryptocurrency event two years ago. Knowing that he was building a new project after the failure of Luna, I wanted to know more. But when he kept texting me, asking if I wanted to have a drink, or asking me to go out only late at night, I knew it was not normal, so I stayed away from him. Thank you to every brave woman in this industry who dares to speak up!"

Jason Choi, co-founder of Tangent, a crypto venture capital club, retweeted Jiwoo's tweet and said, "The last time I mentioned this person's questionable business practices on Twitter, I didn't name him. I even deleted the tweet out of respect for investors and to admit that I didn't have the full story. But the industry needs to speak out about things like this. I don't want to work with you if you took an angel check from him."

From intern to celebrity crypto founder in 4 years

According to his LinkedIn page, Neel Somani majored in computer science, mathematics, and business administration at the University of California, Berkeley from 2015 to 2019, and obtained a double degree in liberal arts with a GPA of 4.0. After graduation, Somani immediately entered the crypto industry and worked as a software engineering intern at Oasis, a well-known privacy public chain at the time, from January to May 2019.

He then left the crypto industry and joined Airbnb as a software engineer in August 2019. A year later, he joined the well-known hedge fund Citadel as a quantitative researcher. In June 2022, Neel founded Eclipse, and in 4 years, he went from an intern to a star founder in the crypto industry.

It is worth noting that according to the New York Times's in-depth report, Somani participated in Terra's Hacker House in Chicago in April 2022, which was sponsored by Terraform Labs and its investors to incubate projects based on Mr. Kwon's technology. Within weeks, Somani had raised $10 million in venture capital, with Terranova valued at $65 million.

One month later, Market Watch did a special profile on Neel Somani, but at this time, the algorithmic stablecoin UST in the Terra ecosystem had seriously decoupled and Luna had collapsed. Somani reportedly lost about $20,000 in the incident. Neel Somani’s personal LinkedIn page does not mention this short career.

According to Market Watch, Somani was still working at Citadel when he saw his friends around him "becoming very successful" in the field of cryptocurrency, so he became more interested in cryptocurrency and believed that it was "possible to make more money" in cryptocurrency than in Citadel. After the collapse of Luna, Somani immediately drafted his next crypto project, which is today's Eclipse.

On March 11, Eclipse Labs announced the completion of a $50 million Series A financing, led by Placeholder and Hack VC, bringing its total fundraising to $65 million. This round of financing also attracted the participation of investors such as Polychain Capital and Delphi Digital, as well as strategic investments from GSR and OKX Ventures, making Eclipse one of the most watched crypto projects.

As Eclipse's attention continues to rise, a month ago, there were still Web3 female entrepreneurs leaving messages under Somani's LinkedIn dynamics seeking cooperation. As of now, Neel Somani has not responded to the accusations of many practitioners on the X platform, and his last tweet was a retweet about Blob.

Industry big names support victims

Kaito founder Yu Hu retweeted Jiwoo Jun’s tweet, saying “The entire Kaito family stands with you and admires your courage to speak out. This must be heard.”

Manta founder victorji.eth once forwarded beachmojito’s post and commented, “Previous sexual harassment in the cryptocurrency field has been completely removed from the industry, and hopes that the same will happen in this case. Even if venture capital and partners have vested interests, such red flags should be blocked.”

Woody, a well-known crypto KOL in Taiwan, forwarded Jiwoo Jun’s post and said, “I don’t know if there will be a chance to see more melons burst out. This situation is definitely not an isolated case in the currency circle. More than one woman told me that similar things happened, but maybe they didn’t dare to say it.”

Neel Salami’s sexual harassment continues to ferment.

Investor Meltem Demirors posted that “Today is the third time in less than a year that David Hoffman has bullied female founders/early employees of companies he has invested in. I’ve had enough. This behavior is disgusting. Using any social capital or influence to bully women is crazy.”

He later updated the post to say that he was on the phone with David Hoffman to discuss the details, “mainly going in circles. My understanding is that David’s view of his own behavior and words is very different from the person on the receiving end.”

But David Hoffman did not come forward to respond formally, and his partner, Ryan Adams, another host of Bankless, expressed support for David under multiple posts, “This is a fairly public accusation, and the way it is written may be interpreted in the worst possible way. David and I I have worked with him for four years and have never seen evidence of him bullying women or similar behavior. Do you have evidence to prove this? "Or "Can you provide evidence so that we can understand his words and deeds for ourselves? Considering this extremely public appeal and its related impact, I think evidence is appropriate."

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