The whole story of the rights protection incident of the leading BTCFi project Solv

The Solv big-householder rights protection incident is like a farce, and now it has finally come to an end.

Through the hustle and bustle of various voices, we can see a lot of things, some people are shining, some are showing their fangs and claws, and some are showing their ugly faces.

What are facts, what are opinions, what are objective, and what are subjective, we can now look back and review them.

1. Let's take a look at the complete timeline first

November 28, 2024: Solv Protocol, the leader of Bitcoin staking protocols, announced TGE (token issuance); @SolvProtocol

December 30, 2024: Binance announced the launch of Solv tokens; @binancezh

January 3, 2025: Solv big holder Mudita posted information on Twitter to defend his rights and invested 1,800 BTC, but the final return was less than expected; @Clarissexx0805

January 4, 2025: Hans, co-founder of Nubit, a BTC ecological data availability project, published content pointing out that the BTC in Solv is not really locked and there is a false TVL; @trackoor 

January 4, 2025: Meng Yan, co-founder of Solv, responded to a force in the industry that maliciously slandered and discredited Solv; @myanTokenGeek

January 4, 2025: Solv CEO Ryan issued a statement to refute and clarify, responding to the content of Nubit co-founder Hans one by one, and Hans' evidence was not convincing at all;

January 4, 2025: Solv CEO Ryan issued a statement to refute and clarify, responding to the content of Nubit co-founder Hans one by one, and Hans' evidence was not convincing at all;

text="">@RyanChow_DeFi

January 5, 2025: Solv official account was stolen;

January 6, 2025: Binance's third Megadrop project-Solv Protocol is opened;

January 6, 2025: Solv activist Mudita announced the issuance of coins.

2. The changing process of public opinion

The above timeline is an objective fact. Let’s take a look at the views of all parties and the changes in the trend of public opinion.

（1） The first stage: empathy

When I first saw the rights protection information, my first reaction was that the project party and the big investors did not reach an agreement on the distribution of benefits before the listing, and the big investors were cut, so the retail investors would naturally benefit.

That is why I first posted a tweet and gave my initial thoughts: many things are not the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but the contradiction between the production class and the distribution class.

That is, it is not the contradiction between the rich and the poor, but the contradiction between those who contribute value and those who ultimately distribute value.

There is no right or wrong, so I don’t take sides.

At this time, the direction of public opinion is mainly "empathy". Most people see the rights protection information, and their first reaction is that the rights defenders are a vulnerable group and the project party has original sin, so they will sympathize with the rights defenders and scold the project party.

Mudita’s tweets are all sympathetic comments, and some big Vs directly stand on the platform to denounce Solv.

However, experienced industry veterans, who have seen a lot, can clearly predict the subsequent trend. A typical example is the clear view given by Mr. Chen Jian: the big fish upstream have not gained enough benefits, and they lead the small fish downstream to defend their rights, which generally does not have a good result. @jason_chen998

(2) The second stage: Criticizing BTCFi's inside story

Then, someone "discovered" that the 1,800 BTC had been in the wallet of the big investor all along, without participating in the pledge, and could be calculated as TVL only through the signature. As a result, public opinion began to turn to fiercely criticize the various shady dealings of BTCFi.

Ask if it is true first, then ask why.

This is a typical rumor. When each platform counts TVL, it only counts the amount of funds in the on-chain address. In fact, there is no false TVL that is repeatedly calculated through signatures.

This is why I wrote a second tweet to refute this statement: From a technical point of view, UTXO cannot be approved for use multiple times, and pre-signature is not a way to prove assets. Message signatures can be used to prove address ownership.

Moreover, generally the project party will make the pledge address public, so the TVL data is mainly based on these addresses. The project party will join hands with some big users to invest funds to increase their TVL, such as using MPC wallet to achieve multi-signature, and the big users and the project party will jointly manage the funds.

More importantly, "fake TVL" does not mean that the data is fake, but that these TVLs are dead funds and cannot really create value. They are just to attract the funds of subsequent retail investors and build momentum for the project.

Real TVL is the liquidity that can be truly utilized, such as lending projects or Swap projects, with high liquidity, users can use the product better; while fake TVL just lies there, and there is no liquidity that is used, such as pledge projects.

(3) The third stage: the project parties tear each other apart

The public opinion reached a climax when the founder of the Nubit project, Hans, joined the battle and directly attacked Solv.

Hans published an article criticizing Solv for recycling the same assets and not really locking up BTC, and encouraged users to withdraw their coins.

However, the evidence provided by Hans was not sufficient and was refuted and clarified one by one by Solv CEO Ryan.

Nubit and Solv are both well-known projects of BTCFi, and the competition between the two has directly risen to the point of tearing each other apart.

If Hans had a reason and evidence to directly expose the industry's dark side, he would be considered a hero in the industry who dares to speak out for justice. Unfortunately, Hans did not provide strong evidence, and many of his judgments were subjective. I have to doubt his motives, as it seems that he was purely trying to discredit.

This put him at a disadvantage, and the professionalism and reliability of the Nubit project itself were greatly affected.

(4) The fourth stage: Binance continues to list coins, and rights defenders issue coins to reap the benefits

Finally, Binance continues to list coins as planned. Rights defenders find that public opinion is not in their favor and there is no need to continue the fight, so they turn around and start issuing coins to reap the last wave of traffic.

Everyone was shocked again: the final outcome of rights defenders in the cryptocurrency circle is to issue coins?

The people who originally supported the rights protection remained silent, feeling that their sympathy was being exploited;

The project party Nubit, which ended up tearing each other apart, remained silent, and its own fate became a joke;

The defamed Solv remained silent, and the public opinion crisis collapsed on its own;

The final winner turned out to be the rights defenders, who not only gained traffic, but also maximized the use of the traffic and directly cashed it out by issuing coins.

3. The lives of people in the crisis of public opinion

In this war of public opinion, we can see the difference between idealists and speculators.

One ​​is really doing things, pushing the industry forward, and getting commercial returns from it; the other is to lie down and collect money after reaping the dividends of the times, defend rights for dissatisfaction with the distribution of benefits, and finally realize the traffic.

I have always felt that Mr. Meng Yan is a rare person worthy of respect. @myanTokenGeek

Many people may only know that Mr. Meng Yan is the co-founder of Solv, but he actually has many titles and achievements.

Before joining the blockchain industry, Mr. Meng Yan first worked at CSDN for 6 years and was the vice president of CSDN. Later, he worked at IBM and can be said to be a technical expert in the Web2 industry.

Meng Yan started to get involved in blockchain technology in 2015 and became a well-known blockchain expert, evangelist and consultant, especially in the Chinese blockchain community.

Meng Yan was once named one of the top ten blockchain educators in China. He proposed the translation of "Token" and promoted the research on Tokenomics.

In 2020, he founded Solv Protocol, focusing on the development of financial NFTs and semi-fungible tokens (SFTs). He is also a co-author of the ERC-3525 standard, the first standard designed for semi-fungible tokens.

During this period, he also participated in several collaborative projects, such as DESFT, a project with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank of Ghana.

Currently, Mr. Meng Yan is mainly responsible for the development of the ERC-3525 ecosystem in Solv Protocol.

Looking back on these past events, we can see that Mr. Meng Yan is very respectable in terms of professional knowledge, industry experience, and personality.

Starting a business, incubating a project, and making a product are like raising a child. Naturally, you cannot tolerate unwarranted slander from others.

Mr. Meng Yan's performance in this public opinion crisis is remarkable. After all, when someone comes knocking on your door, you naturally have to fight.

4. Where will our industry go?

Teacher Meng Yan mentioned a point before, which is worth sharing again here:

Web3 is not only a technological revolution, but also a social movement. It follows the three stages of social movements: positive (idealism stage), negative (alienation stage), and integration (integration with reality stage).

(1) The positive stage of Web3: driven by idealists such as Satoshi Nakamoto and Vitalik, who proposed a decentralized and transparent value system.

(2) Anti-stage: Witnessed the alienation of this ideal - deviating from its own goal and moving towards its opposite, which is the current "cutting leeks" phenomenon.

(3) Integration stage: Emphasizes that Web3 needs to integrate with the real world, combine with tradition, and use idealistic things to transform and integrate the real world.

Historical experience tells us that the "anti" stage often requires a huge price and will cause many problems and contradictions, while the "integration" stage is usually an effective way to achieve the goal in the end.

Web3 is currently in the "anti" stage, which is characterized by the conflict between ideals and reality, as well as the concentrated outbreak of various problems and contradictions.

However, we cannot stay in this state for a long time, because this is essentially using idealistic slogans to achieve the improper goals of individuals or small groups. This practice not only deviates from the original intention of Web3, but also seriously damages the healthy development of the entire ecosystem.

Ordinary users would rather have a centralized giant one thousand kilometers away do evil than a thousand small hooligans within one kilometer do evil to us.

Web3 aims to deconstruct the centralized fiat currency and the traditional financial system, but a lot of scams have been created, and the performance of most projects is far inferior to traditional finance.

Therefore, we must have a very clear understanding of these issues before we can take this step forward.

Finally, let me end with one sentence:

If good people do nothing, bad people will succeed.

This is why I wrote this article, hoping to use my voice and words to record this chaotic event.