Several disgruntled investors are taking their NFT beef to court, accusing the founder of Hashling NFT of vanishing with millions and their trust.
In a spicy lawsuit filed May 14 in Illinois, the plaintiffs claim their former partner-in-crypto, Jonathan Mills, pulled a Houdini with over $3 million from a Bitcoin mining venture, and transferred funds and assets from the Hashling NFT project to a holding company, Satoshi Labs LLC (formerly Proof of Work Labs). Fun fact: Mills just so happens to be both founder and CEO of said company. Convenient, right?
The investors are now suing him for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, saying the only thing they’ve received from Mills is radio silence and broken promises. According to the court docs, they raised a total of $1.46 million across two NFT drops on the Solana and Bitcoin blockchains, and got precisely zero ROI. Not even a thank-you tweet.
And then came the ghosting. The investors say Mills stopped responding, and to make things even sketchier, whipped up a janky shareholder agreement riddled with errors to justify his claim that the company owned all the project's assets. Handy!
Sketchy Equity, a Vanishing Act, and Zero NFT Know-How
According to this suspect agreement, Mills awarded himself a generous 67% equity share in Proof of Work Labs, while other investors tossed in up to $20,000 each and got a measly 2% equity in return. Oh, and he held a 67% voting stake too. Absolute power move.
He also allegedly assured the group that their stakes wouldn’t change after he rebranded the company to Satoshi Labs, an assurance worth about as much as a rug-pulled JPEG.
Ironically, the lawsuit points out that Mills didn’t know squat about NFTs when the Hashling project kicked off. The whole thing stemmed from an early convo with plaintiff Dustin Steerman, who had worked with Mills before and apparently thought he was a safe bet. Oops.
Despite Mills admitting he was broke and clueless in NFT-land, he managed to rope in Steerman and others to get the project rolling. The investors covered everything from artwork to social media to NFT conferences. One of them even claims Mills got his girlfriend to throw money into the mix.
Now, those same investors are asking the court for a constructive trust over the project’s assets, full legal restitution, and presumably, a reality check for Mills.
As it stands, Hashling NFT might just be the latest in a growing list of projects where the only thing minted was mayhem.
HODL Team
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