Crypto All Stars Controversy Sparks Conflict Between Founders

Merely one week after a conflict between the founders of MyEtherWallet led the popular Ethereum wallet application to split into MyEtherWallet and MyCrypto, the founders of another massively popular decentralized application, Crypto All Stars, have engaged in a conflict, confusing the supporters and users of the application.

On Sunday, Crypto Randy Marsh, one of the two founders of Crypto All Stars alongside Adam Hadar, released a Medium blog post that claimed Adam had taken Crypto All Stars as “hostage at the ransom of a buyout.” Randy added that Adam has refused to “free up the company,” and that he remains unsure about the future of the dApp.

In an interview with The Merkle, Randy emphasized that Adam had not threatened anyone on the team, but rather had stated that he would no longer work with the team led by Randy unless the dApp is bought.

“Adam didn’t threaten anyone. He said he wouldn’t continue working on the project from a strategic standpoint, nor working with our team, until we (or I) bought him out. With that he essentially locked up all further development of the project. To his credit, he did say he would continue to work to keep the site running as is,” Randy told The Merkle.

However, speaking to The Merkle, Adam argued that he had lost interest in the project because Randy and the developers that Randy brought on the team had started to pursue a roadmap which had not been agreed upon or approved by Adam. He further emphasized that Crypto All Stars was never held hostage, adding that the smart contract is open source and integrated into the decentralized Ethereum blockchain network. Adam wrote:

[Crypto Randy] and another partner involved in the project started to make partnerships with different companies we haven’t discussed about, they also expected me to code 24/7 while I was telling them this isn’t right, I actually told them I feel like a slave after not having slept for more than 36 hours because they launched the site without it being ready or working.

They don’t use their real name[s] on the internet and they were doing things I wasn’t consulted about or in ethical agreement with so I lost all interest in this project and noticed I was the only one putting my real name in the front, I let Randy know and he said the 40% of the company was worth $0 at this point.

Jules, another contributor to the Crypto All Stars project, told The Merkle that Randy’s team had started to lead the development of the project, excluding Adam from the conversation. “For example we made a call all 4 and decided something, [a] few minutes after the call they sent a message saying they went for something else,” Jules said.

He explained that Adam likely decided to leave the project once he felt that he was being excluded from a project he had founded with Randy.

When Adam felt he had lost interest in the Crypto All Stars project, he offered to either continue working on the project from the sidelines or sell the project to another team or company. Adam told The Merkle that Randy agreed to buy Crypto All Stars from him.

“He said he will buy it from me and then came again to offer me $0, than 10 Ether and I told him that I will just continue fixing the site but not answering to his outrageous requests, [then] he blocked my access to the company’s twitter account and wrote the medium article lying about me holding the funds and company hostage,” said Adam.

However, to The Merkle, Randy commented that he was not planning to buy the project from Adam, who, according to Randy, demanded a buyout, but had reconsidered and offered 10 Ether due to his concerns about the platform’s users. Randy stated:

He wasn’t allowing any forward movement or willing to hold any kind of meeting to resolve things. For all intents and purposes of the future of the project – making it into a better game with different incentives and features – he had quit, on us and our users, and left us with no developer, no code, and no way to move forward that wasn’t buying him out. The project was essentially at a standstill, and i decided i wasn’t going to give back all i had earned to the man who quit on us when we needed him most.

Adam responded:

The project wasn’t [at] a standstill, I kept fixing the bugs, from his point of view it was at a standstill because I wasn’t doing what I was being told by him or his new partner, he lacks experience managing people and he didn’t understand the true meaning of a partnership and project collaboration, he was just looking for an employee to keep coding and adding the features he requested, but by owning 40% of the company I didn’t agree to his decisions and I think going public on internal company matters was the worst decision for Crypto All Stars users.

In response to Adam’s statement, Randy said:

I wanted to push the project forward to give new incentives and reasons to play. I guess we just weren’t on the same page – communication was lacking on both sides. But when he half quit, and demanded a buyout that i felt was wrong I knew the only thing to do was to tell the users we had no way to build new features for the future of the game.

Ultimately, both founders, Adam and Randy, echoed a similar sentiment in that the project had evolved and grown very quickly, surpassing the expectations of anyone within the team, and that the organization was completely overwhelmed by the success.

“The project became very successful very fast; we were all overwhelmed. I’m not sure why adam decided to exit. He said that he was upset by what we had done during launch, and after, but his reactions told us the exact opposite – he was excited and enthusiastic. I can’t be sure what his motivations were when he decided to quit,” wrote Randy.

Despite the conflict, Adam was always willing to contribute to the open-source project. While it remains unclear how long the conflict will last, Adam told The Merkle that he will continue to help the dApp by contributing code to its codebase, sending all donations and payouts, and fixing bugs.

Once payouts are settled and the entire situation is stabilized, Randy plans to distance himself from the project, due to the conflict between the founding members of the team:

The project will remain live and I will keep fixing it since it was launched as a beta, all donations and payouts are being sent out (I sent out 60% and Randy is sending out the rest, links are verifiable on the blockchain).