Bankless Faces Backlash After its VC Arm Sold Aiccelerate DAO Tokens

Bankless, a crypto-focused media company, has come under increasing scrutiny on X after users discovered that wallets connected to Bankless Ventures, the company's VC arm, sold tokens of a project the media arm had promoted, immediately after its pre-sale started.

The intense backlash to the sale is a sign the crypto community is fed up with what many perceive as a rigged game in an industry that’s supposed to stand for transparency and universal, permissionless access to financial opportunities.

Aiccelerate DAO, an investment community for projects at the intersection of crypto and artificial intelligence (AI), was founded by Markus Jun, Ejaaz Ahamadeen, and a pseudonymous user named Ropirito. The project raised at least 125 SOL from contributors, including Bankless co-founders David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams, according to an X post by Aiccelerate.

Other Aiccelerate investors include Shaw, founder of Eliza Labs, Justin Lee of Coinbase Ventures, Andrew Kang and Marc Weinstein of Mechanism Capital, Tommy Shaughnessy and Anil Lulla of Delphi Digital, and Casey Caruso of Topology Ventures. The project had 22 advisors, divided into four categories: development, investment, research, and outreach.

In a Jan. 9 X post, Aiccelerate announced the presale round for its AICC token on Daosdotfun, a Solana-based launchpad for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which would be held on that same day.

"Dumping culture"

Soon after the presale began, the token’s market capitalization skyrocketed, soaring over $400 million, according to a dashboard created to track the presale’s metrics.

The launch seemed like a huge success, but the sentiment was short-lived.

Twitter user 0x_ultra made a dashboard tracking the wallets of investors in the AICC “party round,” which is commonly referred to as a private investment round with many participants, often including angel investors and advisors. The dashboard showed many contributors had sold 100% of their token allocations by the Jan. 11 post. It currently shows 67 of 239 contributors have sold.

Andy, the co-founder of The Rollup media company, said in a Jan.11 X thread that the Bankless founders and venture arm had sold off their AICC allocations after “zero real value creation” to Aiccelerate DAO.

Several X users criticized Bankless for promoting a project and immediately dumping its tokens. Others argued they were not obligated to hold the tokens as they had no vesting period.

AICC’s market capitalization is currently at $84.18 million, according to 0x_ultra’s dashboard.

“The Bankless incident strikes at the heart of a larger issue plaguing crypto: the lack of accountability in a space that prides itself on transparency. While Bankless has called this a ‘mistake,’ the explanation feels a bit too convenient for an industry that thrives on data trails and real-time scrutiny,” Ben Kurland, CEO at crypto research platform DYOR said in an interview with TheDefiant.

“As for the dumping culture that’s become pervasive in this industry, it’s more than just a bad habit. It’s a systemic flaw. The incentives in crypto are skewed toward short-term profit rather than long-term value creation,” Kurland said.

Bankless Statement

Following the uproar online, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman responded to Andy’s thread, saying that he “agrees” Bankless Ventures shouldn’t be selling tokens, and that it was an “impulsive mistake.” Hoffman said the venture capital firm used all funds made from selling the tokens to buy back AICC.

Fellow bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams said in a Discord post that Hoffman re-posted on X, he and Hoffman were invited to the Aiccelerate DAO by founder Ahamadeen, who is also the co-host of a Bankless program called AI Rollup. They invested 5 SOL each into the DAO, while Bankless Ventures’s partner Ben Lakoff invested 2 SOL on behalf of Bankless Ventures.

On the morning of Jan. 11, Lakoff sold 8% of Bankless Ventures’ allocation without the knowledge or authorization of Hoffman or Adams, according to Adams’s Discord post. Hoffman and Adams sold nothing, according to Adams’s Discord post.

Andy, whose The Rollup also has a venture arm, added that Shaw, the anonymous founder of crypto AI project Eliza Labs, had also dumped his Aiccelerate allocation.

Shaw later said in a now-deleted X post he donated half of his allocation to the ai16z and 20% to other contributors.

In addition, Arkham Intelligence said in an X post that $150,000 worth of AICC tokens were sent to a user named InsiderJudas, who began dumping them as soon as he received the allocation.

Before co-founding Bankless, David Hoffman worked as Chief of Operations (COO) at RealT, a real estate tokenizing platform. Ryan Sean Adams founded Mythos Capital before Bankless.

Aiccelerate Responds

Aiccelerate responded to the situation in an X post, announcing that it would implement a vesting schedule for individual allocations and was discussing with advisors how to do the same to ensure the project's success. It also said it removed its treasury funds to a secure wallet.

Meanwhile, Ahamadeen said on X, the founders got ahead of themselves and did not adequately consider the project's structure or allocation process.

To remedy the situation, Ejaaz promised to donate a portion of his allocation to the community and conduct a wider distribution of the AICC token.