A co-founder and quondam lead developer of the decentralized network IOTA, Sergey Ivancheglo, has IOTA Foundation director David Sønstebø with a lawsuit over 25 meg MIOTA (over $8.5 meg).

Ivancheglo announced that he is contacting his lawyers to obtain the assets from Sønstebø in a tweet sent on February. ii. The coins that he claims belong to him are half of the holdings of Jinn Labs, a ternary computing evolution firm they jointly launched:

announced that he is contacting his lawyers to obtain the assets from Sønstebø in a tweet sent on Feb. ii. The coins that he claims belong to him are half of the holdings of the IOTA Foundation:

"I notify the #IOTA community that I no longer work with David Sønstebø and am contacting my lawyers to get my 25 Ti from him. He refuses to transfer the iotas to make me deed for his ain benefit and confronting mine."

Sønstebø says "Don't feed the troll"

On Feb. three, Sønstebø answered the accusations in an open letter to the IOTA community, stating:

"While the IOTA community certainly has every correct to feel let downwardly and angered by CFB's actions, I encourage you all to rather channel that free energy into something more conducive towards IOTA's vision. Adhering to the timeless aphorism of the internet: 'Don't feed the troll' is the best approach here."

Sønstebø claims that — over time — Ivancheglo grew frustrated with his part in the IOTA projection every bit he was unable to pb his developer team towards the development of a coordinator-less version of the network.

IOTA's coordinator is a centralized node that prevents double-spending as long as the network's hashpower is insufficient to ensure security on its ain. The removal of the coordinator is a key role of the projection's roadmap towards a decentralized network.

Ivancheglo, on the other paw, felt that the alphabetic character revealed besides much private data about him, and voiced his dissent on Twitter. He said that he believes the information was revealed with ill intentions and announced:

"To show him that his deed was morally wrong I'll be publishing here fragments of our private convos related to the drama. I'll stop subsequently he apologizes."

Ivancheglo posted several screenshots of private conversations conducted with Sønstebø that — according to him — prove that he owns one-half of the IOTA Foundation's avails. The community's overwhelming reaction seemed negative. The comments ranged from echoes of Sønstebø's suggestion to not engage with Ivancheglo to mocking suggestions that he may take not been sober when sending the tweets.

Not the beginning scandal involving Ivancheglo

This is not the commencement scandal that Ivancheglo is involved in. Equally Cointelegraph reported in early May 2022, leaked correspondence appeared to show that he — interim independently of the IOTA foundation — threatened a cybersecurity researcher with legal action after he disclosed alleged vulnerabilities in the project. The ordeal resulted in the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at the Academy College London dissolving its ties with the IOTA Foundation.

Ivancheglo was also involved in a major disagreement among senior direction of the IOTA Foundation in Baronial 2022. After founders — including him — waited for board seats for over four months, he demanded the board chairman to quit.

Stefano Della Valle, an Italian IOTA effect organizer and CEO of IOTA-based IoT house ThingsLab, is not afraid of the consequences of this fight. He told Cointelegraph that he expects the conflict between Ivancheglo and Sønstebø to take no impact on project's development:

"IOTA's founders must be recognized for their ability to surround themselves with a grouping of competent staff who are certainly aligned with their extreme vision, but at the same time sufficiently asunder from dreams to be pragmatic and therefore extremely productive. Then what seems to exist a CFB exit from the IOTA projection, I retrieve is sad news, but news without any bear on on the projection."

Della Valle also recognized that Sergey Popov, who has led development since Ivancheglo'southward departure in late July 2022, has an approach that — to an outside observer — appears to exist good for the project:

"For a long time the work of internal and external researchers and developers has been led by Prof. Sergey Popov with an approach, which from the outside, seems very linear. The projection is therefore guided by solid scientific foundations, widely shared by the community, both of crypto adopters and mathematicians to whom Popov belongs."