- Entrepreneur Joel Dietz claims the idea and technology at the heart of the app is his own.
- He has filed a lawsuit accusing Consensys of stealing intellectual property and diminishing its merits.
Entrepreneur Joel Dietz has filed a lawsuit against fintech firm Consensys, the developer of popular cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask. He claims the company stole the app idea from him.
According to Dietz’s statement, he created the Vapor project in 2014. It was based on the idea of a cryptocurrency wallet built into the browser.
In 2015, the developer invited Aaron Davis to work on the program. The project participants also received a $30,000 idea grant from the Ethereum Foundation, the suit alleges.
Later, according to Dietz, Davis stopped keeping the partners informed of the progress of the work. Along with Dan Finley, he renamed the app MetaMask, after which, according to the plaintiff, the latter was simply “written out of history.”
The entrepreneur claims the team had a functioning prototype. However, they failed to attract investors, after which Davis left the project and sold the app to Consensys.
In a comment to CoinDesk, a Consensys spokesperson said Dietz had nothing to do with MetaMask and had nothing to do with the development of the wallet:
“We understand this person is falsely claiming to be the author of our product. In this way he is trying to attract investment or sell tokens. But he is not the founder of MetaMask, has nothing to do with it or the technology at its core. We are hopeful that the court will dismiss this frivolous lawsuit.”
In mid-July 2023, rumors of Consensys’ financial problems surfaced online. However, the company was quick to deny them.
They were quickly denied.