The Filecoin Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes the development of the Web3 Filecoin data storage protocol, has hired a lawyer in China and is investigating the reported detention of members of the Filecoin Liquid Stake (STFIL) team, according to an April 13 social media post by foundation senior fellow Danny O’BRIEN.
The withdrawal functionality of the STFIL protocol stopped working in early April after the developer’s wallet made several unscheduled updates and transferred $23 million worth of Filecoin (FIL) tokens to an address whose owner is unknown. On April 8, the STFIL team announced that key technical staff had been detained by local Chinese police and that mysterious updates and moves had occurred during these detentions. This announcement has left many STFIL users wondering how they can get their funds back.
In his post, O’Brien said FF has a lawyer in China who is investigating the incident, adding that the foundation is confident that members of the STFIL team are in police custody. The foundation could not confirm whether police have these funds, but they expect to have this information within a week. The foundation plans to allow its attorney to represent all staking providers and leasers in any court proceedings related to the incident. O’Brien promised to share more information once details of the plan are finalized. It also asked staking providers who had lost funds to provide contact details via a Google Doc or Slack Channel created for this purpose.
Image: The Crypto Times