Paraspace NFT Protocol co-founder resigns after failing to overthrow the CEO

The Paraspace NFT Protocol saga about the whereabouts of the protocol’s fund took another turn on May 19 when co-founder Jay Yao resigned from his position with the company. Last week, the NFT protocol made headlines over the missing funds and a barrage of allegations by chief executives and CEO against each other.

Yao’s decision to leave the company came a week after the Parapace team clashed with CEO Yubo Ruan over the missing funds. Ruan claimed at the time that he was innocent and was tricked into stepping down as CEO by the likes of Yao. Ruan also alleged that Yao and another Paraspace consultant Thomas Schmidt illegally accessed the protocol’s multisig accounts and social media platforms.

Contributors on @ParaSpace_NFT ,

I am writing to notify you of an urgent matter regarding our company. Two former advisers, Thomas Schmidt and Jay Yao, illegally gained control of one of the protocol’s multisig and social media accounts. They did that by contacting key…

— Yubo Ruan (@yuboruan) May 10, 2023

Yao took to Twitter a week later to announce his departure from the company and apologized to the community for letting internal affairs affect users. He added that the entire saga was never “intended to be a public affair, and should have been resolved internally”.

Earlier today, along with other team members, I resigned from my position at ParaSpace.

I am incredibly grateful and fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with so many talented individuals. Without them, ParaSpace would not have achieved the success we did.

While we are still…

— Jay (@MrFryR) May 19, 2023

The entire Paraspace saga revolves around the mismanagement of 2,909 Ether (ETH) with an estimated value of $5.4 million. It all started with a price slipping attack on the NFT protocol on March 18. The attack was immediately intercepted by crypto security company BlockSec. To prevent hostile actors from accessing the funds, the security company removed 2,909 ETH from the protocol and then returned the assets to ParaSpace.

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The Paraspace team claimed that of the 2,909 ETH, only 50% of it was added to the protocol’s coffers. The team accused Ruan of mismanagement of funds because he had exclusive access to the muti-sig wallet. The team consisting of Schimidit and Yao demanded that Ruan be forcibly removed from his position as CEO. However, in the end, Yao resigned along with his team.

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