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ethereum layer 2 project Eclipse is undergoing a change in leadership after its former CEO faced allegations of sexual misconduct.
Neel Somani, founder of the project and now former CEO, resigned from his position. By May 16 advertisement of Eclipse Labs, Somani will be replaced by Vijay Chetty, “effective immediately.”
Eclipse's announcement does not mention the reason for Somani's departure.
Chetty, who currently runs Eclipse, has been the project's growth lead until now. His past experiences include leadership roles at dYdX Trading, Ripple Labs, and Uniswap Labs. He has also worked with investment manager BlackRock.
Meanwhile, Somani has continued to deny all the claims. On May 9 he announced that he was “temporarily reducing” his “public face” following accusations leveled against him.
He asserted that he has not “sexually assaulted or harassed” anyone.
The same day, Eclipse announced that it takes the allegations against Somani “seriously” and “believes in the importance of the truth.”
The former faced immediate backlash from the cryptocurrency community, with some x.com/Mc_Ownie/status/1788677437787967693″ target=”_blank” rel=””>suggestion that the fact that he resigned showed that he was guilty.
Some of Eclipse's backers and investors have also expressed discontent about it. Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, revealed that his venture capital firm passed up the opportunity to invest in Ecliplse while he ran some background checks on the firm.
Dragonfly reportedly learned of Somani's history of sexual harassment allegations.
“If we hear this doing only minimal due diligence, there's no way real investors won't hear the same thing,” Qureshi wrote in an x post.
Meanwhile, Hack VC, an investor in Eclipse, posted on x that it was “deeply concerned” by the allegations made against the former Eclipse founder. The company revealed that he urged Somani to resign and that it was happy with Somani's decision.
“To be perfectly clear: the alleged behavior in question is unacceptable, period.” wrote the signature.
