Regarding this post: This response addresses the false allegations published by @Bitcoinhabebe on X on, available here: https://x.com/Bitcoinhabebe/status/2084664602734829722
We are responding publicly and in full because the claims made in that thread concern identifiable individuals, our community and the work of the past five years. Every point raised is addressed below with facts, verifiable information and supporting documentation.
Your thread presents speculation, assumptions and allegations as established facts. Our response will do the opposite—we’ll address each point with facts, verifiable information and the full context.
We owe that not only to ourselves, but also to every community member who deserves to understand what actually happened.
The project and our commitment
Nearly five years were spent building Ice Open Network.
Many millions of dollars were invested into engineering, infrastructure and product development. The project didn’t make anyone rich—it ultimately resulted in financial losses exceeding $7 million, making it one of the largest financial casualties of what happened.
You wrote that we first met at the KuCoin event in Dubai. That’s correct. During our second meeting, I showed you the technology we had built—not mockups, marketing slides or empty promises. Everything you saw was real software under active development, much of it close to release. That is exactly why you chose to work with us and why you personally invested in the project.
You weren’t the only person who believed in the vision.
We believed in it more than anyone.
A rug pull is designed to enrich its creators. Ice Open Network did the exact opposite. Nearly five years of development, many millions of dollars invested, a public GitHub history, real products, real partnerships, and financial losses exceeding $7 million are fundamentally inconsistent with the narrative that this project was created to enrich its founders at the expense of its community.
Building vs. Marketing
One point from our private conversations deserves particular attention because it speaks for itself.
While we were focused on spending years building real technology, your own advice to us was very different.
“Btw bro, I don’t think the product is of all that importance. Literally no one gives a fuck as long as the marketing for it is so good. Besides the top 10-20 tokens all other coins have no real product and it’s just how u market & show the idea to people.”
We respectfully disagreed then, and we still disagree today.
Our philosophy has always been to build real products before relying on marketing hype.
That approach may not have been the easiest path, and it certainly wasn’t the fastest, but it reflects the values on which Ice Open Network was built.
Ironically, the very thing you’re criticizing today—our years of product development—is exactly what you once argued wasn’t necessary.
Binance
You claim that we misled people regarding Binance.
That is simply not true.
In fact, we never publicly announced or promoted our Binance listing process. You knew about it because, as one of our largest supporters and investors at the time, we chose to share that information with you privately.
When we met in Dubai, I personally showed you the conversation confirming that we had been approved to proceed with Binance’s listing process, subject to the standard listing requirements, including locking approximately $1 million in ICE and $1 million in USDT.
At the same time, our legal advisers recommended completing the planned migration from ICE to ION because of the ongoing trademark proceedings involving the ICE name. We informed Binance of the migration and were invited to continue the listing process once it had been completed.
To remove any doubt, we are attaching the Binance conversation to this post, despite having deliberately kept it private until now.
Unfortunately, by making confidential communications public, any realistic possibility of continuing that relationship has now come to an end. We accepted that consequence because it became more important to correct false allegations than to remain silent.
The facts are straightforward: you knew about the Binance approval long before today because we personally showed it to you. Suggesting now that it never existed is simply inconsistent with what you already knew firsthand.
The market crash
The collapse affected everyone.
Our community.
Our partners.
Our employees.
And ourselves.
Nobody inside the project profited from it.
Looking back, listing ION before all planned utility was live was a mistake. Had Tokenized Communities launched first, as originally planned, the outcome could have been very different.
A business decision that proved unsuccessful should not be rewritten into an allegation of fraud.
The wallet allegations
Your thread presents an internal screenshot as evidence that our COO, Robert, personally sold tokens during the market crash.
That allegation is false.
The screenshot you published originates from internal company data that was unlawfully copied by a former employee who no longer worked with the company. The unauthorized access and extraction of that data were reported to the relevant authorities immediately after the incident.
More importantly, the screenshot does not show Robert selling tokens for personal profit.
It shows ION being swapped from the ION network to BSC so that tokens could be transferred to a service provider under an existing commercial agreement and token unlock schedule.
The on-chain movement of those funds can be independently verified and does not support the allegation that Robert personally sold tokens for his own benefit.
Presenting an internal screenshot obtained through unauthorized access as evidence of misconduct is both inaccurate and misleading.
Employees
You also repeat allegations that employees were intentionally left unpaid.
The reality is considerably more nuanced.
The development team worked through commercial agreements that existed long before the token launched.
When support for the project ended and contractual obligations could no longer be sustained because of the project’s financial collapse, every part of the business was affected.
We publicly acknowledged those financial difficulties months ago and never attempted to hide them.
The due diligence
Your post repeatedly suggests that everyone else simply “got fooled.”
That would require believing that organizations and companies such as KuCoin, Cointelegraph, Uphold, Khabib Nurmagomedov’s team, numerous exchanges, partners and thousands of developers somehow all failed to conduct any meaningful due diligence.
The reality is much simpler.
They saw exactly what you saw: years of engineering, real products, public development and a team committed to building something meaningful.
Legal action
As both parties are UAE residents, legal counsel has been instructed to pursue the legal remedies available under UAE law.
These include claims arising from repeated defamatory statements directed at identifiable individuals, as well as the publication and use of confidential company information that was allegedly obtained through unauthorized access to company systems.
The screenshots and internal data published in your thread were never intended for public disclosure. They originated from information allegedly obtained through unauthorized access to our internal systems, an incident that was reported to the relevant authorities at the time it occurred.
The complete documentary evidence—including contracts, blockchain records, internal communications and supporting documentation—will be presented to the appropriate authorities and courts, where facts—not speculation circulated on social media—will determine the outcome.
We remain committed to transparency, accountability and allowing the evidence to speak for itself.