DeFi is a crypto juggernaut, an empire of it’s own, a money printer…..

The gains are insane in DeFi but a bad trip reveals dark secrets, even in some as peaceful as Wonderland. 

Greed, deception, and convicted felons all have their place in the wonderland of decentralised finance. Things never thought to be possible. Great reputation from Daniele Sestagalli as well as project longevity, how could this be true?

Forget Alice for a bit, lets take the Rabbit down the rabbit hole and see what this means for TIME holders and DeFi in general. 

When Olympus fell, others had to adjust and quickly! 

Sesta, created of the popular frog-nation, ascended to stardom in the DeFi world in record time as he dominated Twitter and created projects in crypto that made investors crazy rich. 

However, every idol relies on their lesser-known team, who often do most of the work. Subject to the unknown would have a devastating consequence he “did not know of” initially. 

Sesta’s Wonderland has fallen like a wind blown house of cards. Mismanaged security decisions from within has led to TIME being frozen in hell and not Wonderland. 

On-chain sleuth ZachXBT, known for his great work exposing crypto bad actors, forced Sesta into admitting the identity of his CFO, OxSifu. 

Michael Patryn, formerly Omar Dhanani, was the co-founder of QuadrigaCX, notorious for their fraudulent activity and the mysterious disappearance of founder Gerald Cotten.

Separate from his involvement in Quadriga, Patryn also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit credit card fraud, burglary, grand larceny, and computer fraud.Sifu had already become beyond rich through Wonderland, as well as his previous crimes, why feel the need to continue?

Why did Sesta risk his reputation to work with Sifu?

And once Sesta found out, over a month ago, why didn’t he come clean?

The following is a conversation from Rekt with ZachXBT to gain further knowledge of the situation:

rekt:

What triggered this investigation?

What made you question 0xSifu's background?

zachxbt:

Well I first posted about TIME back in October after noticing the launch was sniped by CT insiders as well as a secret seed LP.

In the following months my suspicions began to build when transparency was poorly executed.

Ex: mixing personal wallets with treasury funds, lack of documentation, heavily centralized decision making.

Discussed a lot of this with Dani as well.

I received a tip off last week that Sifu was not who he said he was. Ended up confronting Dani about it. Sifu.eth also had a few links to Quadriga.

rekt:

Have you considered the motives of the person providing the tip-off?

Why do you think this has emerged now?

zachxbt:

Can we skip this question.

rekt:

Daniele was already aware of 0xSifu's identity when you confronted him.

What would have happened if there had been no tip-off?

Would Daniele have kept 0xSifu's identity secret?

zachxbt:

From my messages with Dani (seen in my thread) and also the statements made publicly it appears his identity would have remained private.

I can’t speculate too much with what would happen. You’re simply putting the community’s money at risk. Let them decide for themselves via governance. 0xSifu’s history isn’t a coincidence.

rekt:

What do we know about 0xSifu?

Why did Daniele pick him for the role, and why would he try to protect him?

What made him worth the risk?

zachxbt:

Sifu first became known after the Ruler/Cover fiasco when he dumped the treasury on Yearn. Sifu was to blame for a lot of it yet faced lots of backlash at the time.

According to Dani they met when Sifu DM’d him as an early Abracadabra investor. They exchanged ideas and slowly started to work together over time.

Perhaps his interactions with Sifu (unknowingly Omar) made him look past his history.

Dani said however he believes in second chances.

A vote was called, proving that the “Frog Nation” does not share Dani’s beliefs.

So Sifu is gone but it is not only Daniele’s reputation that is damaged.

Andre Cronje had recently partnered with Daniele to launch his new project (SOLID). The timing is noteworthy…

A question that has to be asked, did someone leak this info to damage the reputation of Cronje’s new venture by association?

As well as personal worries, the incident had wide-ranging effects across DeFi markets.

The MIM and UST FUD has led to the highest ever daily volume on Curve, as Wonderland’s stablecoin MIM has been under extreme sales pressure. This wallet alone has been steadily dumping $130M of MIM since the news broke.

Not to mention, the exact project Sesta trashed and had a “war of words” with has taken off since. Trader Joe! Joe has seen a huge jump since. Coincidence? 

Despite initially supporting Patryn, Daniele has now created an apology of sorts, and it seems the fate of Wonderland will now lie in the hands of the community.

Is this an admirable move, or is he betting on the fact that his bagholders may choose to turn a blind eye and forgive like he tried to? 

We will remember the fact that Daniele Sesta was forced into this admission, and if it weren’t for the whistleblower, then he would have continued to shield the identity of this convicted scammer from the community.

Dirty secrets like these are exactly the type of criticism that DeFi regularly faces from regulators, TradFi, and the public at large. Even if the majority is unhappy with the current system, how can we expect to convince new users to leave behind their safety net with bad projects exposed such as this?

TradFi regulators will use this as an easy win in their arguments against DeFi.

However, the truth is not all negative. Even under this intense stress test, MIM has not failed, and the Wonderland protocol has functioned as intended.

Despite the reputational damage this will cause to the industry, DeFi is here to stay.

A community vote is currently underway as what to do next:

Distribute current treasury as it sits to the token holders and dissolve Wonderland TIME or go forward with new management. 
For obvious reason, Sesta does not want the project to be for not. Who wants to relinquish control over an almost $1Billion treasury? 

TIME, while flawed by poor decisions and hiring security protocol, was and is successful. Daily rewards based on investments made bring in over $1Million daily to TIME. Hardly a failure or worry of lack of sustainability from the treasury. 
But the fact remains Sifu was and is unacceptable to run any treasury or be involved in any financial project, more less one that has this level of financial superiority. 

It has also been released recently that Sifu took 4,250 TIME for personal use. Apparently this was to use as personal backing for another investment. So why was it covered up for so long? Why was Sifu allowed to continue and not relieved of CFO before? 

At this point it leads one to believe Wonderland TIME will be dissolved and treasury redistributed to the holders. This will not come close to making up for the financial negligence Sesta has caused. TIME has seen an ATH over $10k. What if you would have bought in there? 

As of today, BY MY CALCULATIONS ONLY, it looks as tho each holder will receive between $700-$800 per TIME. This is a massive loss and finacial pitfall for many people. 

Am I in the minority wishing Sesta would hire new management and rebuild? At least try to turn back TIME?

MMA_Crypto

CryptoGlyn has done a GREAT job getting info out in his well created and times posts. Please reference these articles for further info on TIME. His posts are very well put together and presented.  I highly encourage reading it as well.