Ethereum Layer 2 project Eclipse is seeing a change in leadership after its former CEO faced sexual misconduct allegations.
Neel Somani, the project's founder and now former CEO, has stepped down from his position. According to his May 16 announcement from Eclipse Labs, Somani will be replaced by Vijay Chetty, who will “be effective immediately.”
Eclipse's announcement did not mention the reason for Somani's departure.
Chetty, who currently leads Eclipse, has previously served as the project's growth director. His past experience includes leadership roles at dYdX Trading, Ripple Labs, and Uniswap Labs. He also worked with investment manager BlackRock.
Meanwhile, Somani continues to deny all allegations. On May 9, he announced that he would be “temporarily reducing” his “public face” following the allegations against him.
He claimed he had not “sexually assaulted or harassed” anyone.
The same day, Eclipse announced that it takes the allegations against Somani “seriously” and “believes in the importance of the truth.”
The former faced immediate backlash from the crypto community, with some suggesting that the fact that he was resigning might prove his guilt.
Some Eclipse backers and investors have also complained about this. Haseeb Qureshi, his partner in managing Dragonfly Capital, revealed that his VC firm had conducted a background check on the company while offering it an investment opportunity in Eclipse.
Dragonfly was reportedly aware of Somani's history of sexual harassment allegations.
“If you're doing minimal effort and you're hearing this, there's no way real investors won't be hearing the same thing,” Qureshi wrote in the X post.
Meanwhile, Eclipse investor Hack VC wrote in a post on X that it was “deeply concerned” about the allegations against Eclipse's former founder. The company urged Somani to resign and said it was satisfied with Somani's decision.
“Let us be clear: the behavior in question is unacceptable and must stop,” the company wrote.
