Wonderland’s treasury saga exposes the fragility of DAO projects today
The Wonderland protocol became the talk of the decentralized finance (DeFi) world after the platform was found at the center of a brewing controversy.
On Jan. 27, DeFi analyst zachxbt revealed that one of the anonymous co-founders of Wonderland happened to be QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn, who has been operating under the name of Sifu.
QuadrigaCX is a defunct crypto exchange from Canada which closed when Gerald Cotten, the exchange founder and sole person with knowledge of the exchange's wallet keys, passed away. Following his death, $169 million worth of user funds were irreversibly lost.
Cotten's passing led to a wave of litigation as former exchange users sought to recover their funds. Others in the crypto community claimed that Cotten faked his death to get away with the allegedly stolen crypto.
Zachxbt claimed in a series of tweets that Patryn has been a serial offender of the law and prior to his stint at QuadrigaCX, he helped run an identity theft ring called shadowcrew, to which he later plead guilty.
According to a Bloomberg report citing California court records, Michael Patryn is Omar Dhanani, who was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for running a credit card fraud ring and admitted burglary, grand larceny and computer fraud in three separate criminal cases.
The DeFi analyst questioned Wonderland founder Daniele Sestagalli’s motive to work with a convicted scammer and give him responsibility for a billion-dollar treasury comprising investors’ money.
1/ This needs to be shared @0xSifu is the Co-founder of QuadrigaCX, Michael Patryn. If you are unfamiliar that is the Canadian exchange that collapsed in 2019 after the founder Gerald Cotten disappeared with $169mI have confirmed this with Daniele over
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