Merger Gone Wrong? Fetch.ai Accuses Ocean Protocol of Dumping $120M in FET

In an interesting turn of events, a company merger in the crypto industry is on the verge of collapse following several actions from one of its collaborating firms. The primary action is the alleged massive dump of the merger’s joint token.

This is the case of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI), which constitutes crypto businesses Ocean Protocol, Fetch.ai, and SingularityNET. Fetch.ai has accused Ocean Protocol of dumping up to $120 million in FET. FET was Fetch.ai’s native token until the merger, after which it became the ASI’s official crypto asset.

The Genesis

While announcing the merger in April 2024, the ASI revealed that Ocean Protocol and SingularityNET would merge their tokens OCEAN and AGIX into FET. Ocean Protocol is a decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) and data platform, while Fetch.ai offers a multi-agent network for deploying AI applications. SingularityNET offers an artificial general intelligence (AGI) services framework as well as a blockchain-based AI marketplace.

Together, the trio was set to advance artificial superintelligence. They became one of the largest open-sourced, independent players in the AI research and development community.

Despite the agreement to convert OCEAN and AGIX into FET, Ocean Protocol kept a large number of its native assets in its wallets. The team behind the platform claimed the tokens are allocated for community incentives and data farming, with vesting over decades. The firm said the wallets were managed by the OceanDAO, a decentralized autonomous entity governing the protocol’s activities.

What is Happening Now?

On October 9, Ocean Protocol announced that it was withdrawing from the ASI. The company disclosed that, from now on, it would buy back and burn OCEAN to create a continual supply reduction of the asset. The firm urged exchanges that had delisted the token to relist it and encouraged users interested in converting their FET back to do so.

The ASI community did not receive the news of the withdrawal well, and there was soon an uproar among members, with the price of FET plummeting almost 20% in the last week. Soon after, Fetch.ai founder Humayun Sheikh released a tweet clarifying that Ocean Protocol had made its exit decision without prior warning or discussion with the ASI constituents. Worse still, he likened the team’s move to a rugpull as they had converted and sold millions of OCEAN months before the withdrawal.

As confirmed by the on-chain analytics platform, Bubblemaps, the Ocean Protocol team did convert 661 million OCEAN to 286 million FET on July 1. Before October 14, the team wallet that handled the conversion had split the FET, currently worth roughly $120 million, across 30 fresh addresses and sent them to Binance and the over-the-counter provider GSR Markets.

Although Ocean Protocol’s CEO has called Sheikh’s accusations “unfounded and baseless rumors,” the Fetch.ai founder says legal procedures for the case have begun.

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