The bad blood traces back to the 2024 launch of the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance, uniting Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, and SingularityNET under one token ecosystem. Sheikh later claimed on X that Ocean minted hundreds of millions of OCEAN ahead of the merger and swapped a large chunk for Fetch.ai’s FET — alleging the tokens were sent to exchanges and market makers without notice. He says Ocean created 719M OCEAN in 2023, of which 661M were exchanged for 286M FET in July 2025.

Sheikh says he’ll bankroll class-action suits across several countries and urged affected holders to gather evidence. He shared a blockchain analysis alleging that between July 3–14, 2025, over 76M FET moved to various wallets: ~21M to Binance, ~55M to an address linked to GSR, and ~13.5M to a wallet funded by ExaGroup, with ~200M later routed through multiple Gnosis Safe wallets — most ultimately landing on Binance.

Binance Restricts Deposits as Accusations Intensify
Source: Binance

Ocean hit back, calling the claims “baseless” and “damaging.” The foundation says its treasury is secure and it intends to publish independent findings when possible, noting legal constraints limit what it can disclose now. It also confirmed it has resigned from all roles at Singapore-based Superintelligence Alliance Ltd., effectively ending its work with Fetch.ai and SingularityNET.

Beyond the he-said-she-said, the saga raises governance concerns for the ASI Alliance and the safety of token-holder assets. Under the merger, OCEAN holders received a fixed swap rate into FET (later ASI). Critics argue that structure — alongside new Fetch.ai token issuance — boosted circulating supply and weighed on market performance.