Blockchain DEXs Onchain and Camelot part ways over IFO spat

“We urge @CamelotDEX delete any information related to @OnchainTrade from all of your platforms as soon as possible,” wrote OnChain developers.

In a dispute that originated Feb. 22, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) Onchain Trade and Camelot terminated an agreement for the former’s initial fair offering (IFO), with both firms alleging that the opposing counterparty acted in bad faith. An IFO, whilst still an emerging concept, typically involves promises made by developers consisting of no venture capitalist involvement, no whitelist, no presale, and vast majority of income going to token holders, on top of a traditional initial coin offering. 

As told by Onchain, developers began negotiations with Camelot for an IFO, for which the latter charged a fee of 2%, and both parties agreed upon the amount. In addition, Camelot required that Onchain exclusively sell tokens on its platform, to which Onchain also agreed. However, at this point, Onchain alleged that Camelot became “more demanding and trying to start another round of bargain; we started feeling uncomfortable working with Camelot and decided to terminate deal with them altogether.”

In a follow-up Chinese language tweet, Onchain, which stated its core developers “come from China,” explained that the root cause of the disagreement was the “no-limit” token sale allegedly demanded by Camelot. “There are many opportunities in the bear market; retail investors simply don’t have the risk management and valuation capabilities to assess projects,” Onchain developers wrote. 

In response, Camelot said that Onchain’s statements were “false allegations.” According to Camelot’s version of the story, its IFO sales model “was never mentioned as being an issue from their team [OnChain].”

“This low number [2% fee] which never once changed from our side, was set well below market for such a launch due to a desire to support the ecosystem and facilitate a protocol transitioning over from zksync.”

Regarding exclusivity, Camelot explained that “doing a multiple IDO [IFO] model isn’t feasible, and the same was clearly communicated, and on multiple occasions the OCT team confirmed understanding.” The firm then accused OnChain’s leadership of “acting in bad faith or simply being inexperienced” and “denials after the fact” in a series of direct messages, which Camelot said led to their cancellation of the deal.

We’ll work hard to try and make every project succeed, but some will and some won’t. But in the end, those that fail to understand your words matter, will never have a seat on the Round table.

To which Onchain replied: “tricking us into canceling deal with other partners and starts bargaining round over round thinking we can’t live without you, calling that good faith.” Onchain has since decided to move its IFO directly onto its website. At the time of publication, Cointelegraph was not able to independently confirm the allegations presented by either party.

“Onchain Trade team is so inexperienced in grifting that they cancelled a chance to grift hand in hand”. Tricking us into cancelling deal with other partners and starts bargining round over round thinking we can’t live without you, calling that good faith. https://t.co/ibKLctNdht

— OT | Onchain Trade (@OnchainTrade) February 23, 2023