Branded Beans or Burnt Funds? DAO Left Scraping the Can

Nouns DAO, the decentralised collective behind the popular NFT series, finally has an answer about its 135 ETH investment in branded baked beans: the money is likely gone.

This saga highlights the risks of DAO-based funding, where enthusiasm can sometimes outweigh due diligence.

What began as a lighthearted pitch for premium canned beans backed by NFTs has become a cautionary tale about how quickly funds can vanish—and how difficult it is to get answers when things go wrong.

Nearly three years ago, Nouns DAO approved funding for MOOØNBEANS, a project promising high-end baked beans made with a proprietary recipe from UK-based Sublime Butter.

The proposal came from Chris Mair, known online as "m00t," who was also Sublime Butter’s CEO at the time.

He positioned the project as a natural extension of the company’s existing work.

Onizuka, who was writing on behalf of m00t, said at the time:

"The baked bean industry in the UK is ENORMOUS. Brits get through two million tins of them every single day. And yet, it is one of the plainest and most uninventive verticals on a supermarket shelf. We think this makes it ripe for disruption."

Yet, three years later, not a single can has been produced, and the fate of the $150,000 investment remains unclear.

Tony Ho, a Sublime Butter director, stated:

“No cans have ever been put into production. No packaging has ever been completed. The recipe sign-off has never been done.”

On 28 March, Sublime Butter’s director, Ho informed the Nouns community that he had filed a police report against Mair after being contacted by a DAO member known as "fattybuthappy."

In a discussion on the decentralised social media platform Warpcast, fattybuthappy revealed they had reached out to Sublime to check on the project's status, only to discover troubling inconsistencies.

Drew Coffman, a Base developer who is part of Nouns DAO, noted:

“I feel a little bad, I’m very pro Nouns and don’t like seeing them being made fun of. So many good proposals being funded for every baked beans L.”

Baked Beans Venture Canned

In a letter to fattybuthappy, Ho accused Mair of "fraudulently using" Sublime Butter’s branding to secure funding from Nouns DAO.

Ho asserted that none of the company’s directors had authorized the investment and that Sublime never received any of the funds.

Ho elaborated:

"As far as I am aware, your investment was transferred directly to a wallet owned by him, and then from there I have no idea where the funds have been disbursed to, or how they were used. They certainly have never been incorporated into our Company."

Mair was removed as a director in July 2023 due to "erratic behaviour," according to Ho.

While Sublime has reported him to UK authorities for identity theft and misappropriating the company’s branding, Ho emphasized that only Nouns DAO has the legal standing to pursue action and recover the missing funds, as they never entered Sublime’s accounts.

He pointed out:

“He hasn't stolen anything from us. I saw that Proposition 97 closed in July 2022, which meant that [Mair] had had the funds in July 2022. Well, this is where the whole thing blows up because the company had not agreed to be a vehicle to actually do this MOOØNBEANS thing. The company manufactures butter, it doesn't manufacture baked beans."

He continued:

"He'd used the company fraudulently, without permission, and put the company all over a proposal but didn't actually put any of the money into the company."

Baked Beans Venture & Funds in Limbo

Much of this is not new.

An update to Proposal 97 in 2023 stated that the MOOØNBEANS project was placed on "indefinite hold" due to Mair’s "personal issues."

Over the years, he reportedly claimed that 9,000 cans were "ready to go," only for personal struggles to derail the shipment.

FattyButHappy said on Warpcast:

"[H]e says is not a rugger, also says he could not pay back in one go and would need a monthly payment kind of deal. But guess we'll know more when he will start [to pay] whenever that will be."

Responding to the allegations in a Nouns forum post on Wednesday, Mair described the past two years as "hell," citing an "existential crisis" that led to the collapse of his marriage, friendships, business relationships, and mental health.

He insists that Sublime Butter’s directors were aware of and involved in the MOOØNBEANS project, denying any fraudulent intent.

Mair also refutes claims that he was removed from the company due to misconduct, instead attributing his dismissal to the fallout from his divorce.

Despite the controversy, he remains "100% committed to making MOOØNBEANS a reality" if given another chance.

Mair explained:

"I am the Founder of Sublime, it was my baby and it pains me that I am no longer a part of it. When I set out to create the Moonbeans project I did so in good faith that I was going to deliver a great product. If the community is not willing to go down this route I will have to find a way to repay all of the investment.”

While Ho declined to elaborate on Mair’s struggles, he acknowledged that Mair had entered a "dark" period around the time of the proposal.

He also pointed out that Mair currently lacks production partners, though recent comments suggest he may be seeking new ones.

Noting that he can “still deliver [MOOØNBEANS] project at a very high level,” Mair stated:

"I desperately want to make things right, life has been very tough these past years, and I am only now recovering from what has been a very dark chapter in my life. Yet I have to take responsibility for running away from my problems."

Ho noted:

"But my hunch and my suspicion is that those people who invested aren't going to get their money back because he's got no money to give them."