Ex-Crypto Exec Claims DeFi Company Cut Him Out of Lucrative Stablecoin Biz M^0

Max Glass, a former executive at crypto infrastructure and consulting firm RWA Company, has sued the company, claiming he was wrongfully fired and coerced into signing away his rights so the firm could pursue its stablecoin plans without him.

By doing so, the company committed an act of “fiduciary betrayal,” according to the complaint filed in a Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit on Monday. RWA Company went on to develop a stablecoin venture, which later became M^0—a stablecoin infrastructure provider that’s helped launch several multi-million-dollar stablecoin projects, including MetaMask’s mUSD.

“It arises from a scheme of coercion, fraudulent inducement, and the subsequent breaches of both fiduciary duty and contract by the controlling fiduciaries of RWA Company LLC, Gregory DiPrisco and Joseph Quintilian,” Glass claims in the lawsuit, referring to the company’s two other executives. “DiPrisco and Quintilian breached their duties of loyalty and candor to usurp a valuable corporate opportunity—a new stablecoin product—developed with the Company’s key partner, CrossLend GmbH.”

CrossLend is a German fintech startup that digitizes and standardizes loan data. It’s not a crypto startup, but its technology provides a bridge so on-chain protocols can consume mortgage and debt data. According to the complaint, RWA worked with CrossLend to develop an idea for a stablecoin venture, but then diverted those efforts to form a new entity that later rebranded to M^0.

In doing so, Glass alleges he was wrongfully cut out from the upside of the stablecoin business. “The M^0 enterprise was not merely inspired by the RWA Co.-CrossLend relationship; it was built upon it,” Glass said in the complaint.

Glass also alleges a “pattern of concealment” on behalf of RWA, over the course of several years, that obscures the precise relationship between the company, its founders, and M^0. He claims his inquiries as to whether the companies had merged went unanswered.

M^0 did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.

M^0 has a long list of investors, including Wintermute Ventures, ParaFi, HackVC, Anthony Scaramucci’s Salt, Galaxy, Polychain, and Bain Capital. The company was one of the providers that helped launch Ethereum wallet MetaMask’s native stablecoin, MetaMask USD, or mUSD, in August.

Under the hood, mUSD uses Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin arm, to handle issuance, licensing, and reserve management. M^0 is part of Bridge’s tech stack and used to support minting and interoperability features for mUSD.

Glass said he was responsible for writing the Maker Improvement Proposal that led to Huntingdon Valley Bank securing a $100 million stablecoin loan through MakerDAO, a huge player in the DeFi space and the issuer of the USDS stablecoin, formerly known as DAI.

Glass is seeking punitive damages from the defendants, as well as rescission of his termination, disgorgement of all gains from “wrongful conduct,” and an injunction that would prevent defendants “from selling, transferring, distributing, or otherwise encumbering their ownership interests in the M^0 Enterprise.”