Checked out some amazing street art in the Banksy / Graffiti Tunnel.
This one on the ceiling is by Olivier Roubieu.
The rumors are true and I can finally talk about it: The DOJ has dismissed its case against me and my name has been cleared.
This is an amazing result for me, for my family, for my team, and for DeSo. There is no limit to what we can achieve from here.
At some point, I'll share my full story. But for now, I just want to clarify a few important points since I can now speak openly.
1. My innocence withstood intense scrutiny. The government meticulously combed through my private texts, my private emails, and even private documents I'd written looking for any shred of wrongdoing. They went to people I'd done business with and essentially pressured them to say bad things about me (which nobody did, not even people I'd let go in the past). The process was extremely adversarial. They weren't looking for a reason to clear me, they were looking for a reason to convict me, and any reason would have worked as long as they thought it would convince a jury.
After months of searching, using every method and tool at their disposal, including applying pressure to those around me, the government decided to dismiss their charges.
It's hard to understate how rare a dismissal like this is. After going through this process myself and seeing what the government is capable of, I believe it's highly unlikely that anyone who has ever done anything wrong, or even anything that "feels" wrong, would ever survive the government's scrutiny without being convicted.
I truly believe it only happened in my case because I've always gone above and beyond to do right by everyone I've ever done business with, and because I truly believe in my heart that what we're doing with DeSo is important for the world (and this came out in all my private communications).
2. There was no victim. In their complaint, the government claimed that a conversation they had with "Investor-1" led them to believe that I had defrauded this investor. Many things were incorrect about this claim after it was scrutinized:
1) I never lied about anything. In fact, I was beyond transparent at all times, and I'm confident that Investor-1 would agree
2) Investor-1 was and still is up on their purchase, even after the government's FUD tanked the price by over 70%
3) I am confident that Investor-1 does not consider themselves to be a victim.
Not only that, but Investor-1 has never been anything less than an amazing partner to me all throughout my career for almost a decade now. When I saw them mentioned in the complaint I immediately suspected that the government had compelled their testimony, and was either misunderstanding or misrepresenting an innocent conversation to reach the conclusion they wanted to reach.
I believe that if you asked Investor-1, the only entity they'd consider themselves a victim of is the US government for wasting so much of their time, and for costing them more in legal fees than the amount allegedly lost to fraud (which to be clear was zero because they are still up on their original purchase of tokens).
In summary: I believe the case that was brought against me consisted of a no-loss non-fraud against an alleged victim who doesn't even consider anything negative to have occurred, other than the actions of the government itself.
3) DeSo is fully-decentralized. Perhaps the allegation that hurt the most was the government's claim that BitClout/DeSo, the blockchain that I've been working on for years now, is not fully-decentralized. They did this by pulling a text message I sent out of context. In the message, I said something like "even something that is fake decentralized would probably still not be a security." Right *after* that message I clarified that BitClout/DeSo is *actually* decentralized, and thus has virtually no securities risk as a result. Unfortunately, the government didn't include that context in their complaint, which in my opinion is an act of bad faith on the government's part.
For the avoidance of doubt, I will say on the record right here and now that BitClout/DeSo has been fully-decentralized from approximately late 2020. To say I thought anything else would not only be wrong, it would contradict actual hard fact.
4) This was some hard stuff. A lot of things about what I went through were hard. One day I will tell the whole story and I think it will be quite interesting for people to hear-- but not today.
I don't want to come off as arrogant or hyperbolic, but I feel I have to give my honest assessment and say that I'm pretty sure something like this would have broken most people. There is something "life or death" about a crisis like this that I feel few working in traditional companies have ever really dealt with, even at the highest levels. At minimum, it would break their team and make it hard to continue to operate normally...
This being said, I'm proud to say that our team remained solidly intact, and we even successfully launched two major products through all the noise: Openfund and Focus (which you should try, by the way), as well as a major network upgrade to Proof of Stake.
I always knew that I hadn't done anything wrong and that it would all get resolved. But everyone around me did as well, including my team. That belief, combined with the absolutely heroic support of my friends and family, made it manageable without too much stress. And of course, it doesn't hurt that I believe DeSo is one of the most important things I can be doing for the world, and worth fighting to the death for.
Lastly, I have to mention that if it weren't for all of the efforts of others in our industry, especially @brian_armstrong and his work with Coinbase, I'm not sure crypto would be where it is today, and I'm not sure we would have gotten such a swift dismissal of my case.
===
In the short-term, I've got big plans for DeSo, Focus, Openfund, and HeroSwap (my team's core products). Every single one is best-in-class at what it does and a potential billion-dollar business on its own. Now that I'm able to operate at full capacity, free from stifling constraints, and with my reputation and network restored, I'm confident we'll realize that potential.
Now, let's get back to work.
Congrats to @nader and team for a well-deserved W on the DOJ case.
Not to be an asshole, but I'd love to see all those keyboard warriors who were spreading FUD and character assasination attempts across the Focus/ DESO social media channels issue a heartfelt apology.
Oh wait, they probably won't because they're all clowns 🤡🎪
Based on Nader's description, do I have sufficient grounds to speculate whether Investor-1, burdened by high early investment costs, might intentionally engineer a black swan event to accumulate low-priced tokens and reduce their average cost basis?
hahaha，just some wild brainstorming for kicks – pure entertainment, no need to take it seriously! 😉
The price of desoopenfundfocus hasn’t surged as dramatically as anticipated.
Black & White Photography 365 Day Challenge
One #BW365 a day that's the way
✅ Use #BW365 tag ✅ Tag me and @photographerscorner #bw365 Everyone is invited!
The rumors are true and I can finally talk about it: The DOJ has dismissed its case against me and my name has been cleared.
This is an amazing result for me, for my family, for my team, and for DeSo. There is no limit to what we can achieve from here.
At some point, I'll share my full story. But for now, I just want to clarify a few important points since I can now speak openly.
1. My innocence withstood intense scrutiny. The government meticulously combed through my private texts, my private emails, and even private documents I'd written looking for any shred of wrongdoing. They went to people I'd done business with and essentially pressured them to say bad things about me (which nobody did, not even people I'd let go in the past). The process was extremely adversarial. They weren't looking for a reason to clear me, they were looking for a reason to convict me, and any reason would have worked as long as they thought it would convince a jury.
After months of searching, using every method and tool at their disposal, including applying pressure to those around me, the government decided to dismiss their charges.
It's hard to understate how rare a dismissal like this is. After going through this process myself and seeing what the government is capable of, I believe it's highly unlikely that anyone who has ever done anything wrong, or even anything that "feels" wrong, would ever survive the government's scrutiny without being convicted.
I truly believe it only happened in my case because I've always gone above and beyond to do right by everyone I've ever done business with, and because I truly believe in my heart that what we're doing with DeSo is important for the world (and this came out in all my private communications).
2. There was no victim. In their complaint, the government claimed that a conversation they had with "Investor-1" led them to believe that I had defrauded this investor. Many things were incorrect about this claim after it was scrutinized:
1) I never lied about anything. In fact, I was beyond transparent at all times, and I'm confident that Investor-1 would agree
2) Investor-1 was and still is up on their purchase, even after the government's FUD tanked the price by over 70%
3) I am confident that Investor-1 does not consider themselves to be a victim.
Not only that, but Investor-1 has never been anything less than an amazing partner to me all throughout my career for almost a decade now. When I saw them mentioned in the complaint I immediately suspected that the government had compelled their testimony, and was either misunderstanding or misrepresenting an innocent conversation to reach the conclusion they wanted to reach.
I believe that if you asked Investor-1, the only entity they'd consider themselves a victim of is the US government for wasting so much of their time, and for costing them more in legal fees than the amount allegedly lost to fraud (which to be clear was zero because they are still up on their original purchase of tokens).
In summary: I believe the case that was brought against me consisted of a no-loss non-fraud against an alleged victim who doesn't even consider anything negative to have occurred, other than the actions of the government itself.
3) DeSo is fully-decentralized. Perhaps the allegation that hurt the most was the government's claim that BitClout/DeSo, the blockchain that I've been working on for years now, is not fully-decentralized. They did this by pulling a text message I sent out of context. In the message, I said something like "even something that is fake decentralized would probably still not be a security." Right *after* that message I clarified that BitClout/DeSo is *actually* decentralized, and thus has virtually no securities risk as a result. Unfortunately, the government didn't include that context in their complaint, which in my opinion is an act of bad faith on the government's part.
For the avoidance of doubt, I will say on the record right here and now that BitClout/DeSo has been fully-decentralized from approximately late 2020. To say I thought anything else would not only be wrong, it would contradict actual hard fact.
4) This was some hard stuff. A lot of things about what I went through were hard. One day I will tell the whole story and I think it will be quite interesting for people to hear-- but not today.
I don't want to come off as arrogant or hyperbolic, but I feel I have to give my honest assessment and say that I'm pretty sure something like this would have broken most people. There is something "life or death" about a crisis like this that I feel few working in traditional companies have ever really dealt with, even at the highest levels. At minimum, it would break their team and make it hard to continue to operate normally...
This being said, I'm proud to say that our team remained solidly intact, and we even successfully launched two major products through all the noise: Openfund and Focus (which you should try, by the way), as well as a major network upgrade to Proof of Stake.
I always knew that I hadn't done anything wrong and that it would all get resolved. But everyone around me did as well, including my team. That belief, combined with the absolutely heroic support of my friends and family, made it manageable without too much stress. And of course, it doesn't hurt that I believe DeSo is one of the most important things I can be doing for the world, and worth fighting to the death for.
Lastly, I have to mention that if it weren't for all of the efforts of others in our industry, especially @brian_armstrong and his work with Coinbase, I'm not sure crypto would be where it is today, and I'm not sure we would have gotten such a swift dismissal of my case.
===
In the short-term, I've got big plans for DeSo, Focus, Openfund, and HeroSwap (my team's core products). Every single one is best-in-class at what it does and a potential billion-dollar business on its own. Now that I'm able to operate at full capacity, free from stifling constraints, and with my reputation and network restored, I'm confident we'll realize that potential.
Now, let's get back to work.
The Last Chapter of the Genocide
written by Chris Hedges
Lord of the Flies - by Mr. Fish
This is the last chapter of the genocide. It is the final, blood-soaked push to drive the Palestinians from Gaza. No food. No medicine. No shelter. No clean water. No electricity. Israel is swiftly turning Gaza into a Dantesque cauldron of human misery where Palestinians are being killed in their hundreds and soon, again, in their thousands and tens of thousands, or they will be forced out never to return.
The final chapter marks the end of Israeli lies. The lie of the two-state solution. The lie that Israel respects the laws of war that protect civilians. The lie that Israel bombs hospitals and schools only because they are used as staging areas by Hamas. The lie that Hamas uses civilians as human shields, while Israel routinely forces captive Palestinians to enter potentially booby-trapped tunnels and buildings ahead of Israeli troops. The lie that Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are responsible — the charge often being errant Palestinian rockets — for the destruction of hospitals, United Nations’ buildings or mass Palestinian casualties. The lie that humanitarian aid to Gaza is blocked because Hamas is hijacking the trucks or smuggling in weapons and war material. The lie that Israeli babies are beheaded or Palestinians carried out mass rape of Israeli women. The lie that 75 percent of the tens of thousands killed in Gaza were Hamas “terrorists.” The lie that Hamas, because it was allegedly rearming and recruiting new fighters, is responsible for the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement.
Israel’s naked genocidal visage is exposed. It has ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza where desperate Palestinians are camped out amid the rubble of their homes. What comes now is mass starvation — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on March 21 it has six days of flour supplies left — deaths from diseases caused by contaminated water and food, scores of killed and wounded each day under the relentless assault of bombs, missiles, shells and bullets. Nothing will function, bakeries, water treatment and sewage plants, hospitals — Israel blew up the damaged Turkish-Palestinian hospital on March 21 — schools, aid distribution centers or clinics. Less than half of the 53 emergency vehicles operated by the Palestine Red Crescent Society are functional due to fuel shortages. Soon there will be none.
Israel’s message is unequivocal: Gaza will be uninhabitable. Leave or die.
Since Tuesday, when Israel broke the ceasefire with heavy bombing, over 700 Palestinians have been killed, including 200 children. In one 24 hour period 400 Palestinians were killed. This is only the start. No Western power, including the United States, which provides the weapons for the genocide, intends to stop it. The images from Gaza during the nearly sixteen months of incessant attacks were awful. But what is coming now will be worse. It will rival the most atrocious war crimes of the twentieth century, including the mass starvation, wholesale slaughter and leveling of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 by the Nazis.
KHAN YUNIS, GAZA: Palestinians, who have difficulty finding food, wait with empty containers in their hands to receive food distributed by charitable organizations at Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis, Gaza on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Oct. 7 marked the dividing line between an Israeli policy that advocated the brutalization and subjugation of the Palestinians and a policy that calls for their extermination and removal from historic Palestine. What we are witnessing is the historical equivalent of the moment triggered by the annihilation of some 200 soldiers led by George Armstrong Custer in June 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. After that humiliating defeat, Native Americans were slated to be killed with the remnants forced into prisoner of war camps, later named reservations, where thousands died of disease, lived under the merciless gaze of their armed occupiers and fell into a life of immiseration and despair. Expect the same for the Palestinians in Gaza, dumped, I suspect, in one of the world’s hellholes and forgotten.
“Gaza residents, this is your final warning,” Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz threatened:
The first Sinwar destroyed Gaza and the second Sinwar will completely destroy it. The Air Force strikes against Hamas terrorists were just the first step. It will become much more difficult and you will pay the full price. The evacuation of the population from the combat zones will soon begin again…Return the hostages and remove Hamas and other options will open for you, including leaving for other places in the world for those who want to. The alternative is absolute destruction.
The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was designed to be implemented in three phases. The first phase, lasting 42 days, would see an end to hostilities. Hamas would release 33 Israeli hostages who were captured on Oct. 7, 2023 — including women, those aged above 50, and those with illnesses — in exchange for upwards of 2,000 Palestinian men, women and children imprisoned by Israel (around 1,900 Palestinian captives have been released by Israel as of March 18). Hamas has released a total of 147 hostages, of whom eight were dead. Israel says there are 59 Israelis still being held by Hamas, 35 of whom Israel believes are deceased.
The Israeli army would pull back from populated areas of Gaza on the first day of the ceasefire. On the seventh day, displaced Palestinians would be permitted to return to northern Gaza. Israel would allow 600 aid trucks with food and medical supplies to enter Gaza daily.
The second phase, which was expected to be negotiated on the sixteenth day of the ceasefire, would see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Israel would complete its withdrawal from Gaza maintaining a presence in some parts of the Philadelphi corridor, which stretches along the eight-mile border between Gaza and Egypt. It would surrender its control of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
The third phase would see negotiations for a permanent end of the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Israel habitually signs agreements, including the Camp David Accords and the Oslo Peace Agreement, with timetables and phases. It gets what it wants — in this case the release of the hostages — in the first phase and then violates subsequent phases. This pattern has never been broken.
Israel refused to honor the second phase of the deal.
It blocked humanitarian aid into Gaza two weeks ago, violating the agreement. It also killed at least 137 Palestinians during the first phase of the ceasefire, including nine people, — three of them journalists — when Israeli drones attacked a relief team on March 15 in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
Israel’s heavy bombing and shelling of Gaza resumed March 18 while most Palestinians were asleep or preparing their suhoor, the meal eaten before dawn during the holy month of Ramadan. Israel will not stop its attacks now, even if the remaining hostages are freed — Israel’s supposed reason for the resumption of the bombing and siege of Gaza.
GAZA: A Palestinian family, who left their homes due to the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, has suhoor at Salah al-Din shelter center on March 12, 2024. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Trump White House is cheering on the slaughter. They attack critics of the genocide as “antisemites” who should be silenced, criminalized or deported while funneling billions of dollars in weapons to Israel.
Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is the inevitable denouement of its settler colonial project and apartheid state. The seizure of all of historic Palestine — with the West Bank soon, I expect, to be annexed by Israel — and displacement of all Palestinians has always been the Zionist goal.
Israel’s worst excesses occurred during the wars of 1948 and 1967 when huge parts of historic Palestine were seized, thousands of Palestinians killed and hundreds of thousands were ethnically cleansed. Between these wars, the slow-motion theft of land, murderous assaults and steady ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continued.
That calibrated dance is over. This is the end. What we are witnessing dwarfs all the historical assaults on Palestinians. Israel’s demented genocidal dream — a Palestinian nightmare — is about to be achieved. It will forever shatter the myth that we, or any Western nation, respect the rule of law or are the protectors of human rights, democracy and the so-called “virtues” of Western civilization. Israel’s barbarity is our own. We may not understand this, but the rest of the globe does.
The rumors are true and I can finally talk about it: The DOJ has dismissed its case against me and my name has been cleared.
This is an amazing result for me, for my family, for my team, and for DeSo. There is no limit to what we can achieve from here.
At some point, I'll share my full story. But for now, I just want to clarify a few important points since I can now speak openly.
1. My innocence withstood intense scrutiny. The government meticulously combed through my private texts, my private emails, and even private documents I'd written looking for any shred of wrongdoing. They went to people I'd done business with and essentially pressured them to say bad things about me (which nobody did, not even people I'd let go in the past). The process was extremely adversarial. They weren't looking for a reason to clear me, they were looking for a reason to convict me, and any reason would have worked as long as they thought it would convince a jury.
After months of searching, using every method and tool at their disposal, including applying pressure to those around me, the government decided to dismiss their charges.
It's hard to understate how rare a dismissal like this is. After going through this process myself and seeing what the government is capable of, I believe it's highly unlikely that anyone who has ever done anything wrong, or even anything that "feels" wrong, would ever survive the government's scrutiny without being convicted.
I truly believe it only happened in my case because I've always gone above and beyond to do right by everyone I've ever done business with, and because I truly believe in my heart that what we're doing with DeSo is important for the world (and this came out in all my private communications).
2. There was no victim. In their complaint, the government claimed that a conversation they had with "Investor-1" led them to believe that I had defrauded this investor. Many things were incorrect about this claim after it was scrutinized:
1) I never lied about anything. In fact, I was beyond transparent at all times, and I'm confident that Investor-1 would agree
2) Investor-1 was and still is up on their purchase, even after the government's FUD tanked the price by over 70%
3) I am confident that Investor-1 does not consider themselves to be a victim.
Not only that, but Investor-1 has never been anything less than an amazing partner to me all throughout my career for almost a decade now. When I saw them mentioned in the complaint I immediately suspected that the government had compelled their testimony, and was either misunderstanding or misrepresenting an innocent conversation to reach the conclusion they wanted to reach.
I believe that if you asked Investor-1, the only entity they'd consider themselves a victim of is the US government for wasting so much of their time, and for costing them more in legal fees than the amount allegedly lost to fraud (which to be clear was zero because they are still up on their original purchase of tokens).
In summary: I believe the case that was brought against me consisted of a no-loss non-fraud against an alleged victim who doesn't even consider anything negative to have occurred, other than the actions of the government itself.
3) DeSo is fully-decentralized. Perhaps the allegation that hurt the most was the government's claim that BitClout/DeSo, the blockchain that I've been working on for years now, is not fully-decentralized. They did this by pulling a text message I sent out of context. In the message, I said something like "even something that is fake decentralized would probably still not be a security." Right *after* that message I clarified that BitClout/DeSo is *actually* decentralized, and thus has virtually no securities risk as a result. Unfortunately, the government didn't include that context in their complaint, which in my opinion is an act of bad faith on the government's part.
For the avoidance of doubt, I will say on the record right here and now that BitClout/DeSo has been fully-decentralized from approximately late 2020. To say I thought anything else would not only be wrong, it would contradict actual hard fact.
4) This was some hard stuff. A lot of things about what I went through were hard. One day I will tell the whole story and I think it will be quite interesting for people to hear-- but not today.
I don't want to come off as arrogant or hyperbolic, but I feel I have to give my honest assessment and say that I'm pretty sure something like this would have broken most people. There is something "life or death" about a crisis like this that I feel few working in traditional companies have ever really dealt with, even at the highest levels. At minimum, it would break their team and make it hard to continue to operate normally...
This being said, I'm proud to say that our team remained solidly intact, and we even successfully launched two major products through all the noise: Openfund and Focus (which you should try, by the way), as well as a major network upgrade to Proof of Stake.
I always knew that I hadn't done anything wrong and that it would all get resolved. But everyone around me did as well, including my team. That belief, combined with the absolutely heroic support of my friends and family, made it manageable without too much stress. And of course, it doesn't hurt that I believe DeSo is one of the most important things I can be doing for the world, and worth fighting to the death for.
Lastly, I have to mention that if it weren't for all of the efforts of others in our industry, especially @brian_armstrong and his work with Coinbase, I'm not sure crypto would be where it is today, and I'm not sure we would have gotten such a swift dismissal of my case.
===
In the short-term, I've got big plans for DeSo, Focus, Openfund, and HeroSwap (my team's core products). Every single one is best-in-class at what it does and a potential billion-dollar business on its own. Now that I'm able to operate at full capacity, free from stifling constraints, and with my reputation and network restored, I'm confident we'll realize that potential.
Now, let's get back to work.
We missed reviewing the Weekly Top Creator Chart yesterday and top spot.
Last weeks Top Creators on @NFTz were:
No. 1 $SharkGang
No. 2 @PenWyn (us yeah 🐧😍)
No. 3 @PotatoCoin
No. 4 $Jigglers
No. 5 @Ribbitz
Congratulations to all the NFT Creators here on Deso and thank you to all the collectors and supporters and a special thank you to @NFTz for making this so easy for all us 😍🐧🥰
