Solana Lender Drama Deepens: $250 Million Outflow After Founder Quits

Recently, Solana has once again made headlines due to disagreements between some projects built on its chain. Specifically, there have been conflicts between MarginFi, a Solana-based lending and borrowing protocol, Solend, another lending platform, and SolBlaze, a liquid staking solution.

During the commotion, MarginFi’s chief executive officer and creator resigned following controversy over some questionable social media posts and intense backlash. The initiative is currently experiencing substantial withdrawals and a profound sense of mistrust from the Solana crowd.

Solana’s Projects Fight Each Other

Yesterday, SolBlaze announced that MarginFi had neglected to replenish BLZE tokens in their rewards system for users to claim over the past three weeks. Furthermore, SolBlaze stated that they had tried to contact MarginFi’s team to clarify the issue but received no response.

MacBrennan, one of MRGN’s co-founders, viewed the project as being subjected to an unfortunate and misleading criticism in a recent post on X. The MarginFi team member then took to the platform to set the record straight and clear up any misunderstandings.

We were the target of a very unfortunate hit piece today.

I’ll clarify the misinformation you’re seeing:

1) This tweet is completely wrong

MarginFi hasn’t restocked BLZE for the past three days instead of three weeks. This is due to network congestion and priority issues.

— macbrennan (hiring) (@mrgnalt) April 10, 2024

According to the post, the supply shortages happened for the past eight days rather than the previous three weeks. These issues arose due to Solana network overload and a focus on ensuring user security.

MacBrennan also disputed the allegation that MarginFi’s team ignored their attempts to contact them. The “exposé” from SolBlaze was published at 4:46 am, and according to the post, SolBlaze attempted to get in touch with MarginFi around the same time.

Users of MarginFi promptly reacted to MacBrennan’s message, expressing concerns over the project’s honesty. They asserted that they hadn’t obtained BLZE tokens from SolBlaze prior to the network clogging up.

Further stoking excitement, the Solend protocol team announced via their X account that those who transfer funds from MarginFi and move them to Solend will receive an airdrop.

Rooter, the founder of Solend, shared the reason behind their involvement, stating that his initiative had faced “numerous assaults” during the bear market.

The MarginFi team was accused of various actions against Solend. These allegations involved trying to discredit Solend among other peers, speaking negatively about the project, and critiquing its oracle setup.

According to Rooter’s perspective, a healthy dose of competition is generally welcomed. However, this is not the case with MarginFi, as expressed by Solend’s founder, who stated bluntly that “MarginFi’s questionable behavior irks many teams.”

Solana Lender Drama Deepens: $250 Million Outflow After Founder Quits

MarginFi CEO Quits, Claims Differences With The Team

During the heated exchange, Edgar Pavlovsky, founder and CEO of MarginFi, responded to the criticism in a way that was met with disapproval. In one particular response, Pavlovsky said, “If you’re not happy, take your money elsewhere,” followed by labeling the user as an “irrelevant, defaming individual.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the back-and-forth replies persisted, leading to the former CEO’s resignation from all MRGN entities later in the day. He expressed his disagreement with both the internal and external handling of matters.

I resigned from mrgn today. From working on marginfi, from the research arm, from it all.

The team is truly exceptional, there’s no denying that. However, I dispute some of the methods used both inside and outside the organization. I’ve expressed my concerns on numerous occasions, and I will continue to do so, for those of us who are a part of it.

— edgar (@edgarpavlovsky) April 10, 2024

The lending protocol announced that Pavlovsky was stepping down due to internal discrepancies in operations, explaining that this was the reason for his departure. However, rest assured that all ongoing projects continue to run smoothly and remain unimpacted by this change.

Critics voiced their disapproval alongside the announcement, with MarginFi clients raising questions about the absence of a specific schedule for distributing the tokens through an airdrop. The occurrence seems to have caused some users to rethink their commitment to the protocol.

The decrease in total value locked (TVL) was significant, going from $910 million to $660 million over the past two days based on Dune Analytics’ reports. This reduction can be attributed to substantial withdrawals amounting to approximately $250 million.

Solana Lender Drama Deepens: $250 Million Outflow After Founder Quits

Significantly, the number of new users on the Solend Protocol has surged during recent events. In contrast, a competing platform experienced a fourfold increase in new users within the last day, growing from 245 on Wednesday to 1178 new users today.

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2024-04-12 07:12