Early last year, EOS Network Foundation CEO Yves La Rose announced that it would take new legal action against Block.one (B1). This company had promised to invest in the EOS ecosystem, but it never did. The CEO believes that investors in EOS are the victims of this, and encourages holders to sue Block.one.
EOS Foundation calls for a lawsuit
La Rose writes that in a open letter to investors. Block.one had pledged to put $1 billion into the ecosystem during EOS’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and beyond. But since then it has put minimal effort into the network. La Rose believes that B1 never had this intention and still does not have it now.
The EOS network would be under-capitalised as a result, and the development of the network has been severely hampered. Meanwhile, investors have poured their money into EOS under the assumption that Block.one would invest $1 billion in its development. Last year, the EOS Network Foundation sought $4.1 billion in damages for this reason.
If there is enough enthusiasm from EOS holders and in particular validators (‘block producers’), a class action lawsuit against Block.one could be fruitful, according to La Rose. In addition, validators could consider a hard fork that Block.one would not be able to participate in. The Block.one tokens would then no longer be part of the new network.
NNot the first lawsuit involving EOS and Block.one
The situation is very similar to a lawsuit that started in 2020, when an investment fund sued an individual investor Block.one because the ICO was in fact a sale of unregistered securities. This dispute initially ended in a $27.5 million settlement, but the federal judge withdrew the settlement. It would be absurd to treat an internationally available cryptocurrency as a security on US soil.