Mike Dudas alleges Trove ran an ICO scam by keeping 9.4 million dollars raised under false pretenses while the token’s value collapsed from a 20 million to about 1.4 million dollar FDV within minutes, calling for anyone who takes money from the project to be publicly shamed and outed.

Venture capitalist and The Block founder Mike Dudas has publicly accused Solana-based perpetual DEX project Trove of running an ICO “scam” after its TROVE token collapsed in value immediately after listing while the team retained most of the raise. Dudas claimed Trove kept about $9.4 million of the roughly $11.5 million raised “under false pretenses,” and called for service providers and promoters who took money from the project to be named and publicly shamed. According to exchange and news reports, Trove held an ICO for its TROVE token ahead of a January 20 launch on Solana, raising around $11.5 million and deciding to keep $9,397,403 in proceeds for protocol development. When TROVE began trading, it opened at about a $20 million fully diluted valuation (FDV) but rapidly crashed by roughly 95% to under $1 million FDV within minutes, leaving ICO participants with steep losses. Community backlash focused on what critics described as misleading marketing and a “rug pull,” compounded by Trove’s change in technical plans (including a shift involving Hyperliquid/Solana integration) and on‑chain evidence of payments to key opinion leaders (KOLs) and early HYPE token sales as the token generation event approached. The dispute highlights persistent concerns in crypto around ICO-era practices: large treasury retention by teams, aggressive influencer marketing, and sharp post‑listing price collapses that primarily harm retail participants. Regulators have not publicly intervened in the case so far, but Dudas’s call for public accountability of advisors, KOLs, and other service providers paid by Trove underscores growing pressure inside the industry for informal enforcement and reputational consequences when token launches are perceived as abusive, even in the absence of formal legal action. "entities":["Trove","TROVE (token)","Mike Dudas","The Block","Solana","Hyperliquid","HYPE (token)","ICO participants / retail investors"]}'}】}

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