Steven Nerayoff, an early advisor for Ethereum, has been involved in heated debates about the network. He claims that Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, the co-founders of Ethereum, engaged in fraudulent activity in the early days of the network and accuses the SEC of corruption in its dealings with Ethereum.
Speaking in a Space hosted on social media platform X, Nerayoff revealed that he has recorded proof implicating Vitalik Buterin.
Nerayoff has claimed that the fraud in the early days of the Ethereum ecosystem exceeds the scale of the FTX scandal, which led to the exchange’s bankruptcy. This ongoing saga raises questions about the transparency and decentralization of one of crypto’s largest ecosystems.
Speaking on a podcast, Nerayoff mentioned that Ethereum Foundation had faced difficulties in 2015 and Vitalik Buterin sought his help to save and restructure the foundation, as he had created the utility token and ICO for ETH.
Nerayoff stated that he had a three-hour conversation with Vitalik which he recorded and plans to release as a free NFT and a transcript in the next four to five days.
He also discussed how the SEC essentially gave a free pass to Ethereum amidst the ETH Gate scandal. Nerayoff believes that at the time of the SEC’s speech, ETH was centralized and did not meet the requirements for decentralization.
Nerayoff claimed that he possessed internal documentation indicating that the network hadn’t met the requirements to be decentralized, which led to regulators charging him with extortion. He believes this was a setup by the SEC, FBI, and the DOJ to take him down.
Nerayoff’s claims have caused concern within the Ethereum investor community and raised questions about the SEC’s actions.
He failed to provide details of his conversation with Buterin and did not specify which laws were broken, but hinted that it contained proof that the Ethereum founders did not believe the network was decentralized during its launch.
The release of Nerayoff’s recording could potentially lead to legal action against Buterin and other ETH founders, but Nerayoff stated that it’s up to the SEC and the DOJ to pursue criminal charges.
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