Token Foundry founder Harrison Hines has filed a lawsuit against Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum, for breach of contract. He was summoned to court in a $13 million lawsuit connected to failed ConsenSys spinout Token Foundry. The charges are being levied against Lubin by the startups former CEO, and Hines accused Lubin with “breach of contract, conversion, quantum meruit, unjust enrichment, fraud, declaratory judgment and unpaid profits arising from the defendants’ acts in connection with the business known as Token Foundry.”

Token foundry was a startup incubated by ConsenSys in 2018. It essentially designs and sells vetted tokens, and sold $18.5 million worth of tokens for virtue poker, and completed successful ICO for Dether and FOAM, raising $13.4 and $16.5 million respectively. However, Hines was booted from the startup last year.

Lubin founded ConsenSys in 2014 as a blockchain company dedicated to building decentralized applications and infrastructure based on the Ethereum network. ConsenSys saw many layoffs in January 2019, which led to many key executives leaving the company.

Token Foundry had rumors circulating last year that it was to shut down after Hines left the firm in August. Lubin created ConsenSys as a global “organism” meant to build applications and infrastructure for a “decentralized world.” The crypto-conglomerate created dozens of spinouts, or “spokes” in an attempt to capitalize on the first-mover advantage in many of these unexplored decentralized applications. Most of these projects were largely funded out of Lubin’s billion dollar Ethereum fortune with little regard for profitability or feasibility.

It is possible Tokens Foundry failure is more a reflection of the systemic issues at ConsenSys, the company having an underwhelming track record. Perhaps Token Foundry will have more success with their new business model and leaders that are not constricted by controls from a superior officer, finding “new ways to conduct cryptocommerce” via subscriptions—and maybe even token issuances, regulations be willing.

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