Some more poking through company incorporation records in California shows that MyCrypto LLC was incorporated as far back as August 2017, which means tayvano has been planning this split for at least that long and probably a good deal longer.

It also shows that the MyEtherWallet LLC company has been dissolved — unilaterally by tayvano alone — as of 29 Dec 2017. Which begs the question — what company is kvhnuke running now? Who actually owns and operates MEW? It could certainly have been transferred to another company — but has it been? The website security certificate still says “MyEtherWallet LLC”.

We don’t know for sure of course, but I suspect that what happened is that negotiations for a buyout by kvhnuke and an amicable separation broke down. In connection with this, MyEtherWallet LLC has now been dissolved by tayvano (why?), and it looks like she has taken most of the employees and left to start a new company. Kvhnuke is left with control of the MEW software/codebase/brand and maybe a few employees (there appears to be a fight for control of the @myetherwallet Twitter account though), but since MyEtherWallet LLC has been dissolved, the legal status of all of these things is unclear.

However, as far as MEW’s functionality goes, no one’s crypto holdings should be affected. MEW (and now MyCrypto) is only a front-end for accessing the Ethereum blockchain and the blockchain itself is not affected by this (it’s like using different apps to access your Gmail account — your email stays in the same place, whatever app you use to access it). Also, the MEW codebase is public and any suspicious changes to the code etc will be easily spotted, so I am not worried about that aspect — only whether such a useful tool (now two) will survive and continue to get better.

I spy more litigation and stormy seas ahead (tayvano’s comment in her article that “MyEtherWallet will continue to be online until it, for whatever reason, is not online” may be a reference to current and potential litigation). I only hope the valuable service that MEW (and now MyCrypto) provides continues for the benefit of the wider crypto community.

UPDATE: It’s been pointed out on Reddit that it is inaccurate for me to say that tayvano dissolved MyEtherWallet LLC “unilaterally…alone”, because when you look at the relevant documents, the company appears to have had three members/shareholders, and two of them (tayvano and the third member) dissolved the company. This is factually correct, so I am updating this post to reflect that. I could have chosen my words better — I meant to say that tayvano appears to have dissolved the company without kvhnuke’s co-operation, and as far as we know, that appears to be true. I did not mean to imply that there were only two shareholders in the company or that tayvano was the only signatory to the dissolution.