Founder of crypto exchange COBINHOOD Popo Chen: “This is no exit scam”

Popo Chen, the Founder of crypto exchange COBINHOOD, which launched in December 2017, has released a statement responding to recent accusations of mishandling of the business and other events, the letter can be found in full below (unedited):

Hi everyone, this is Popo Chen, founder of COBINHOOD.

Thanks to everyone who cares about COBINHOOD Exchange and DEXON Foundation. I’d first apologize for not being responsive to questions lately. This was because some of our recent incidents have gone into legal process and we were not allowed to comment in public. I’ll explain below.

I saw some media made bold guesses about the company planned an exit scam, and some said we announced bankruptcy.

I hereby declare: This is no exit scam. The company didn’t file bankruptcy either.

The incidents happened to us were more complicated and unfortunate. However, I and our team has been working literally around the clock to keep our products in operation, and to protect the legit rights of our token holders and supporters.

Some key points

1. DEXON Foundation and COBINHOOD Exchange both have been functional, as you can see.
2. There was no exit scam. Our company has been through a series of unfortunate incidents, causing COBINHOOD Ltd. announced its suspension on Monday, May 20th. Its mother company Blocktopia, Inc. then formed a smaller team (including me) to take over the daily operations that used to run by CONBINHOOD Ltd.
3. There was no dump of DXN tokens. DEXON Foundation, the co-founders and our team members still have all of our DXN tokens.
4. The value of DXN token has been shrinking massively because of what happened. It’s unfair to those unvested DXN holders, who joined private purchases because of their belief in this company. The company’s shareholders have all agreed that we’ll try our best to make sure unvested token holders have been looked after. I expect that we can figure out the details in about one month, then I will start to contact unvested token holders.

Here is what happened.

On Apr. 26th, one of our institutional investors accused me, Popo Chen, for financial misconduct in a board meeting of Blocktopia, Inc. Since it was misled by false info, I agreed to cooperate with any legal investigation. However, all of my access to the company was then immediately removed, including my email, slack, telegram and office badge.

The incident later came to the public in early May, when the team had to explain why Popo is no longer in the company. Later on May 10th, I met with the other co-founder Wei-Ning, we both agreed that I should leave the financial issue to the court and back onto the team.

However, as a result of weeks of public disputes, COBINHOOD Ltd. had to announce its suspension to the authority on May 20th, and all its employees need to be legally laid off. The mother company Blocktopia, Inc. then formed a smaller team to continue operations of DEXON Foundation and COBINHOOD Exchange. So far COBINHOOD Exchange and DEXON mainnet are both functional and not affected.

The rumor of exit scam maybe because of the fact that all of these incidents happened right after DXN token’s public sale. Our original goal was simple — to make the DXN token distribution as decentralized as possible. We are all depressed about the difficulties we encountered.

Personally I struggled a lot from the situation, to see the company I built from scratch now ends up closing down. Still, before the whole situation, the team had launched DEXON, our biggest achievement. I’m still convinced that DEXON is the most efficient, most business-ready blockchain mainnet in the world right now.

I have to apologize to those who were eagerly waiting for our statement. It does take a while for us to go through all possible solutions of keeping the company running, resolving legal issues and disagreements between investors, then settling all the employees. Sorry I couldn’t explain earlier.

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude and apology to all the COB and DXN supporters, the team could not have come so far without each of you.

It was noted from some Chinese readers, that the English version of the letter claimed all is “ok” while the Chinese version says they’re shutting it down still. Whatever happens in the end to COBINHOOD, will be updated in time.