Wonderland CFO Exposed as Ex-Convict ‘Michael Patryn’

Wonderland chief financial officer, who goes by the moniker OxSifu on Twitter, has allegedly been exposed as Michael Patryn, a convicted criminal and co-founder of defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. He will now relinquish his position as treasury manager of the decentralized finance (Defi) protocol.

Pseudonymous on-chain sleuth Zach on Thursday posted their chat with Daniele Sestagalli, the high-profile developer who co-founded Defi protocol Wonderland with Patryn, saying that they have identified OxSifu as Patryn.

Sestagalli confirmed the conversation with Zach in a pre-emptive tweet earlier, but remained rather vague about the identity of OxSifu as Patryn. He later issued a statement saying that Patryn, or OxSifu, will now step down pending a vote of whether he should be reinstated as Wonderland’s treasury manager.

“Today allegations about our team member @0xSifu will circulate. I want everyone to know that I was aware of this and decided that the past of an individual doesn’t determine their future. I choose to value the time we spent together without knowing his past more than anything,” Sestagalli averred.

In the statement, Sestagalli said he had known about the Patryn situation for about a month, but did not take action because he believed “in giving second chances”. However, his support of OxSifu on Twitter drew angry reactions from people that have invested their money in his protocols, causing a change of mind.

“I have decided that he [OxSifu] needs to step down till a vote for his confirmation is in place,” he said. “Wonderland has the say to who manages its treasury not me or the rest of the Wonderland team.”

The many faces of Michael Patryn

Michael Patryn co-founded defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX with the late Gerald Cotten in 2013, but left three years later over disagreements about the company’s plans to go public. The exchange collapsed in 2019 with $169 million of investor funds.

Patryn served time in the U.S. for his role in an online identity-theft ring. Twice he allegedly changed his name with the Canadian British Colombia government – from Omar Dhanani to Omar Patryn in March 2003, and then in 2008, to Michael Patryn. He denied being Omar Dhanani in previous reports.

In the U.S., Patryn was charged with several crimes, including pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit credit and bank card fraud in 2005. He was just 22 years old at the time. He allegedly operated a website called shadowcrew.com, now defunct, peddling 1.5 million stolen credit and bank card numbers.

Patryn confessed to numerous unrelated crimes that include burglary, grand larceny and computer fraud in 2007. He served 18 months in prison for some of his criminal cases and was later deported to Canada, where he reinvented himself, becoming involved with cryptocurrencies.

“One of the reasons why blockchain technology and DeFi is so powerful is that has no bias about your past. I have no bias about @0xSifu he has became a friend and part of my family and if my reputation of judgment will be hit by his dox, than be it. All frogs for me are equal,” said Sestagalli.

Wonderland money

Wonderland is “a decentralized reserve currency protocol,” built on the Avalanche blockchain network. It was built by Sestagalli, who together with OxSifu, launched the protocol as a fork of Olympus DAO in late 2021.

Wonderland “seeks to be a reserve currency system built from a treasury of assets”. The network’s native token is called TIME. Unlike most stablecoins that are backed by the US dollar, TIME derives its value from a basket of crypto assets such as MIM. The protocol is an attempt to create an independent monetary system.

People who participate in Wonderland refer to themselves as”frogs” or “frog nation”. This nation of frogs expands to include Defi protocols Abracadabra, another of Sestagalli’s creations, Sushi and Popsicle Finance.

At the time of writing, TIME is down 16% at $409 over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko. The token has slumped 70% from $1,400 since Monday. Total value locked in Wonderland was at $146 million, per Defillama data.

Sestagalli is currently working with Andre Cronje of Yearn Finance on a new project called Solid Swap. The project has been highly anticipated. It utilizes the concept of vested escrow tokenomics to pay more rewards, and grant more voting power, to long-term investors.

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