Secret Network Validator Smart Stake to Shut Down Nodes
One of the most important validators for the privacy smart contract layer-1 blockchain. The Secret Network has declared that it would no longer provide the network with nodes or assistance after making this announcement.
On the 29th of January, the main validator Smart Stake made the announcement that it will turn down its Secret Network validator nodes on the 21st of February.
As justification for the discontinuation of its services, Smart Stake claimed "complicated and stressful validator operations, the expense and effort of validator operations, and recent events."
Staking and validator services are provided by Smart Stake, which is a provider that works with many networks, including Crypto.com, Polygon, and Cosmos, as well as Secret Network up until very recently.
The decision was made in the wake of discoveries about the Secret Foundation's lack of financial openness made by the founder of Secret Labs, Guy Zyskind.
On January 28, Zyskind made public allegations that the foundation and its founder and CEO, Tor Bair, "sold a substantial amount of USD worth of SCRT" in late 2021. SCRT is the native token for the Secret Network. Zyskind's allegations are based on the fact that SCRT is the native token for the Secret Network.
In his allegations, he said that "Tor cashed out a considerable percentage of these revenues."
In the report for the foundation's fourth quarter in 2021, Zyskind also stated an inflow of four million dollars, but he did not disclose the withdrawal.
This activity was not revealed in any financial reports that were released to the community by the Foundation, which on several times was presented by Tor as a charitable entity.
On the other hand, Bair shared his perspective of the events on the Secret government forum the very same day. He claimed that the withdrawals were a portion of the vested tokens that were rightfully his.
"Instead of paying me out my vested tokens in December 2021, I changed my vested part of tokens to USD at the OTC price, and Secret Foundation distributed these cash as a dividend," the author writes. "
He went on to say that "this information is verified in our 2021 tax filings," adding that "Labs has already seen these files, and I have previously shared this information to them."
At least one network validator provider and the community of the ecosystem have been unsettled by the continuing disagreement inside the leadership of the organisation.
Since the beginning of this week, SCRT prices have been unaffected by the internal kerfuffle and have been stabilising around the $0.80 level. However, the coin is now trading at a price that is 92% lower than its all-time high of $10.38 reached in October 2021 and Bair's original price of $7.