Former IOTA board member, Sergey Invancheglo (CFB), recently announced that he would be taking legal action against David Sønstebø, Founder of IOTA, for refusing to release the mIOTAs under his name, while also alleging misappropriation of funds.
I notify the #IOTA community that I no longer work with David Sønstebø and am contacting my lawyers to get my 25 Ti from him. He refuses to transfer the iotas to make me act for his own benefit and against mine.
— Come-from-Beyond (@c___f___b) February 2, 2020
The dispute revolves around 25 million mIOTAs, worth around $7.7 million, at the time of writing. However, Sønstebø was quick to respond to the allegations, claiming that it was disheartening to see his partner of six years develop “cold feet” and go back on previous agreements.
“I always thought CFB had b*lls, but it turns out that they are a mirage built out of insecurities,” said Sønstebø. “To see the nonsense claims and sheer lies is just… sad.” Sønstebø also claimed to have defended him against criticism and controversies on multiple occasions, stating that Invancheglo is “unable to be professional, and is willing to stab anyone in the back to feed his ego.”
This very public dispute seems to have stemmed from a distributed hardware project they had worked on before the IOTA project — Jinn.
“I truly wish him good luck on his endeavor to realize his personal vision — a true VR MMO. In terms of personal and professional relationship: I am done.”
Invancheglo had left the IOTA Foundation last year, stepping down from its Board of Directors toward the end of June, a time when its Alpha and Omega engineering teams were scheduled to merge. Currently, the foundation is developing an implementation to enable an IOTA function without a central coordinator — Coordicide.
Sønstebø added that he would be posting a letter tomorrow, one that would detail the events that transpired in a transparent fashion. “The cliff notes are: IOTA is too mature and has too much momentum in the real world to be single-handedly held hostage by someone who wants the entire protocol to conform to his VR-MMO company,” he said.
