Buyer of ‘Jack Dorsey Tweet’ NFT Is Out of Prison and Under Fire From Investors

Sina Estavi, champion known for buying the non-fungible token (NFT) of Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet, is attempting a comeback aft 2 failed cryptocurrency ventures and 9 months successful prison  – and asking the aforesaid investors to spot him again.

Following Estavi’s May 2021 arrest successful Iran connected charges of “disrupting the economical system,” his CryptoLand speech folded, leaving customers incapable to entree their funds, and the terms of his Bridge Oracle project’s BRG token tanked. Now retired of prison, the Iran-born crypto entrepreneur says he’s trying to marque it close with holders of those astir worthless tokens, which were issued connected the Tron blockchain.

Last week, Estavi offered to fto holders  swap those tokens for a caller mentation of BSG moving connected the Binance Smart Chain. Unlike its namesake token, the caller BRG tin beryllium sold connected respective exchanges.

The catch? He wants the archetypal BRG investors to nonstop him their telephone numbers and immoderate TRX tokens (the autochthonal currency of the Tron network) to verify their holdings. He’ll nonstop them their caller tokens wrong a period oregon 2 on with the TRX tokens that were sent for verification, helium claims.

“I privation the crypto assemblage astir the satellite to enactment maine and for america each to enactment each other, truthful that we tin proceed to beryllium almighty and spell further and assistance the blockchain,” Estavi said successful Persian, successful 1 of respective interviews with CoinDesk.

Many Bridge Oracle investors said they person their doubts, for galore reasons. For 1 thing, Estavi launched and promoted the caller token earlier moving retired however to repay investors successful the aged one.

“This man did not swap a azygous span and started to [list caller BRG] successful caller exchanges,” a Bridge Oracle token (BRG) holder who goes by “Mohamad,” told CoinDesk via the Telegram messaging app, referring to Estavi.

Another crushed investors are wary is that, according to them, Estavi did not supply definitive details astir the imaginable swap until aft being bombarded with questions astir it. The swap was officially announced pursuing past week’s announcement that helium had enactment the Dorsey NFT up for sale.

He listed the integer collectible connected the OpenSea marketplace for $48.8 million, much than 16 times what helium paid for it past year. As of Wednesday, erstwhile the auction ended, the highest bid was a specified $280 and Estavi said helium may clasp onto the asset.

CoinDesk spoke to astatine slightest 10 BRG investors who are waiting to person caller tokens.

“It was much similar a promotional show,” said a idiosyncratic who goes by “Farhad,” speaking successful Persian of Estavi’s offer. “It seems that determination is nary swap.”

A assemblage of BRG holders person banded unneurotic successful a Telegram radical to travel updates connected the token and marque definite they get their wealth back. (Few if immoderate are autochthonal English speakers.)

Estavi “did not swap our tokens (25,000 holders) connected the Tron platform, delight enactment holders, helium is misusing [the] crypto situation to get rich,” different BRG holder, who goes by “Taha,” told CoinDesk via a Twitter nonstop message. Taha said helium owns 500,000 aged BRG tokens stored astatine 2 exchanges.

Estavi told CoinDesk helium lone asked users for tiny amounts of TRX, ne'er much than 0.1% of the full fig of BRG tokens successful a fixed wallet, to verify their holdings to initiate the swap. An capitalist who held 290,417 BRG, for example, sent 147 TRX (about $8.70) for the verification. Anyone looking astatine the Tron blockchain would beryllium capable to corroborate that the wallet that sent 147 TRX besides held 290,417 BRG.

After users started complaining that adjacent 0.1% was excessively overmuch to ask, Estavi said connected April 11 that he’d acceptable a caller ceiling successful implicit terms: Now users would beryllium asked to nonstop nary much than 30 TRX (about $1.80) to verify their BRG holdings. A BRG capitalist confirmed to CoinDesk that 30 TRX is the caller ceiling, and caller transfers to the designated Tron wallet for the swap autumn nether this threshold.

In a token swap, 2 parties hold to commercialized 1 token for another. One of the parties volition springiness an agreed magnitude of 1 plus to the counterparty, and successful crook person a definite magnitude of the other. Normally, erstwhile blockchain projects migrate from 1 concatenation to another, swap requests tin instrumentality up to a fewer days to process. The play for swapping tokens tin alteration depending connected the rules acceptable by the project involved, and determination are immoderate safeguards successful spot to forestall idiosyncratic from taking disconnected with users’ funds. In this case, Estavi says the swap is to beryllium conducted “manually,” by which helium means users volition person their caller tokens successful a period oregon two.

CoinDesk reviewed incoming Tron transfers to the address listed by Estavi and the amounts lucifer the ranges Estavi mentioned.

But the petition for TRX tokens to verify holdings of BRG connected the Tron network, and the information that Estavi’s squad initially planned to inquire users to stock their backstage keys arsenic a method of verifying their holdings, has spooked immoderate investors.

They conscionable privation their wealth back, successful immoderate form.

“Consider that we don’t privation to ruin the project, we privation to get our rights,” said different BRG investor, “Hawk.”

In an interrogation with CoinDesk, Estavi described his apprehension and the trauma of the period helium spent successful solitary confinement. Estavi insists helium has been a “victim of cryptocurrency” but that he’s backmost and “more powerful” than before.

He besides said that helium is determined to instrumentality funds to his investors. But his splashy instrumentality has lone enraged immoderate of his archetypal investors and crypto watchdogs.

After Estavi was arrested past twelvemonth and his assets were seized by Iranian authorities, BRG plummeted, leaving holders with nothing. Customers of his speech fared nary better. In July 2021, CryptoLand investors successful Iran reportedly took to the streets to protestation the nonaccomplishment of their funds. It is unclear however overmuch wealth successful full was kept connected the speech earlier it closed.

But aft 9 months successful custody, Estavi was released without explanation, the charges against him seemingly dropped. Since past helium has regained entree to his societal media accounts, and has secured verification badges for his idiosyncratic Twitter relationship (which was verified anterior to his arrest) and for the relationship for Bridge Oracle. These badges, besides known arsenic bluish checks, awesome to Twitter users that a well-known user’s relationship has been verified. They are hard to travel by.

Estavi besides launched the caller BRG token, this clip connected Binance Smart Chain (whose autochthonal token is BNB), to the dismay of archetypal BRG buyers who are inactive waiting to recoup immoderate of their losses.

In March 2021, Estavi purchased the NFT of Dorsey’s tweet for $2.9 million and was abruptly each implicit the news. He was even interviewed for an nonfiction by BBC successful which helium compared Dorsey’s NFT to Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” The NFT was akin to an autographed shot paper oregon grounds album; portion the tweet was successful the nationalist domain, the tokenized mentation was unique.

On May 17, 2021, according to Estavi, equipped officials broke the doorway to his flat successful Tehran. He was aboriginal blindfolded and taken to a prison, Estavi said.

After his arrest, Estavi’s Twitter relationship was seemingly seized by officials. A tweet stated that ​​“The proprietor of this media outlet was arrested connected charges of disrupting the economical system, by bid of the Special Court for Economic Crimes.”

According to information from CoinMarketCap, pursuing the quality of Estavi’s apprehension the marketplace capitalization of the Tron mentation of BRG fell from astir $1 cardinal (on May 16) to $38.9 cardinal 7 days aboriginal and retraced lone a fraction of the losses successful December aft helium revealed helium was retired of prison.

Estavi claims helium was astatine Ward 2A successful Tehran’s Evin prison, known arsenic one of the astir notorious jails successful Iran. He says nary carnal harm came to him, but helium was questioned regular until precocious into the night, and did not person a lawyer assigned to him.

Teary-eyed during a Zoom telephone with CoinDesk, Estavi said the acquisition was emotionally taxing. He recalled the period helium spent successful a two-by-three metre country successful solitary confinement, lone being allowed to locomotion astir blindfolded.

“I ne'er privation to deliberation astir those memories,” Estavi said aboriginal successful a WhatsApp message.

After six months, Estavi was moved to a nationalist ward successful November (which is erstwhile helium began moving connected restarting his projects, arsenic his enactment connected authoritative Telegram accounts for CryptoLand shows). He stayed determination for 3 months, aft which helium claims helium was released and disconnected the hook.

“I could not beryllium charged and I did not perpetrate immoderate crime. Does anyone enactment successful situation erstwhile nary 1 has committed a transgression !?” Estavi said connected WhatsApp.

CoinDesk was incapable to independently verify Estavi’s relationship of the apprehension and clip spent successful prison. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Cyber Defense Command did not respond to a petition for comment. Its website is nary longer working. An in-depth, archived article that primitively appeared connected the website hints astatine wherefore the IRGC, a subdivision of the Iranian Armed Forces, was suspicious of Bridge Oracle. The nonfiction refers to Bridge Oracle, successful Persian, arsenic “one of the dubious projects that has suffered a batch successful assorted levels of implementation and design” and says the task utilized “immoral” methods to pull users to assorted Telegram groups.

The U.S. authorities has designated the IRGC a foreign violent organization and claims the Iranian bureau was down a 2020 “coordinated run of individuality theft and hacking … successful bid to bargain captious accusation related to U.S. aerospace and outer exertion and resources.”

Estavi’s abrupt merchandise has raised eyebrows successful immoderate crypto circles.

Mohammad Jorjandi, proprietor of Webamooz, an autarkic cybercrime researcher based successful Virginia who has been pursuing Estavi’s lawsuit for a year, is among members of the Iranian crypto assemblage who person questioned Estavi’s return, including successful the Webamooz Telegram channel that has astir 450,000 members. Webamooz often discusses individuals successful the Iranian fintech abstraction who are suspected of shady practices.

Jorjandi, who says helium mislaid entree to his ain Twitter relationship for sharing idiosyncratic accusation of suspected crypto scammers, shared successful the Webamooz chat and to CoinDesk a station that suggested  Estavi whitethorn person asked a Tehran tribunal to acceptable him escaped to rise wealth done the merchantability of BRG tokens to refund Cryptoland users. Jorjandi did not supply impervious that the tribunal allowed Estavi to spell escaped to rise funds.

“I'm not successful immoderate broadside but erstwhile helium [does] not gives CryptoLand users wealth backmost (because helium doesn't person oregon doesn't privation to show) but commencement to merchantability BRG again it's wide that [the court] fto him to bring wealth from ANYWHERE adjacent [a scam],” Jorjandi said successful a written statement.

Jorjandi shared an unverified document, which helium said archetypal appeared successful a Telegram radical of radical who mislaid wealth successful CryptoLand, connected the Webamooz Telegram channel. Jorjandi said the papers appears to beryllium a missive to a authoritative and it suggested Estavi sought support from a section tribunal to database BRG tokens “only connected overseas exchanges.” Estavi disputed the document’s authenticity, calling it “a elemental paper” that had thing to bash with him.

“You telephone this a document?” Estavi said successful a WhatsApp message, referring to the paper, adding, “I bash not judge specified a thing.”

Jorjandi besides said that Estavi had been an outspoken protagonist of erstwhile Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad connected his societal media channels, which Jorjandi said whitethorn person made him an IRGC governmental people nether the mean authorities successful powerfulness astatine the clip of the arrest. Ahmadinejad was a hardline blimpish who was known for fiercely defending Iran’s atomic programme arsenic president from 2006 to 2013. Separately, Estavi told CoinDesk that helium believes 1 of the reasons helium was arrested whitethorn person been due to the fact that of his popularity connected societal media and for showing enactment for Ahmadinejad. Estavi besides insisted helium is not a “political person.”

Estavi would not sermon the conditions of his merchandise with CoinDesk. But helium said helium was moving connected getting his investors their wealth backmost connected his ain volition.

“It is important to maine that radical get their spot and I effort to bash that,” Estavi said.

Yet, Estavi said that aft giving fractional the proceeds of the imaginable NFT merchantability to charity, helium wanted to transmission the rest to enactment blockchain projects, and named lone 1 example: his ain enterprise, Bridge Oracle.

When asked wherefore helium wouldn’t usage the proceeds from the NFT sale, which helium had expected to full tens of millions, to repay BRG investors, Estavi said: "I repetition this: We are preparing and creating a method infrastructure for swap tokens. The tokens volition beryllium swapped soon." (The question turned retired to beryllium academic, with the highest bid for the NFT lone 3 figures and Estavi present saying he whitethorn ne'er merchantability the asset.)

The much-awaited token swap

On Nov. 13, 2021, Estavi posted the archetypal messages connected the CryptoLand Telegram radical since his apprehension successful May 2021. In 1 dependable message, reviewed by CoinDesk, Estavi tells BRG holders to support their tokens wherever they are, and that holders volition not carnivore immoderate losses. Hawk took this to mean Estavi volition instrumentality users their tokens without condition.

But successful a aboriginal connection (originally successful Persian), reviewed by CoinDesk, helium announced a peculiar airdrop, oregon giveaway, “in proportionality to their BRG assets” but “only for holders and friends who person purchased” the archetypal BRG aft the day of his arrest.

Separately, during an Instagram Live league connected Feb. 24, 2022, reviewed by CoinDesk, Estavi acceptable the other information for swaps:

“Because of what happened aft my imprisonment we person nary enactment but lone swapping earlier my apprehension date, this is earlier May 17, 2021. I’ll not swap aft that time due to the fact that if not, we won’t beryllium capable to prevention the project. Because we privation it to beryllium arsenic almighty arsenic it was before. We’re trying to negociate with exchanges to refund USDT to anyone who purchased BRG aft May 17.”

On March 14, 2022, Estavi announced his instrumentality to the crypto satellite successful a Twitter station accompanied by a video. That day, the Bridge Oracle Twitter relationship announced that the BRG token, primitively of the Tron network, would beryllium relaunched connected the Binance Smart Chain; $5,000 worthy of caller BRG tokens would beryllium fixed distant to 100 fortunate winners, the station said.

Meanwhile, holders of the archetypal BRG tokens were starting to interest due to the fact that determination was nary wide update connected whether oregon however they would beryllium capable to swap their aged tokens for caller ones.

On March 23, 2022, Estavi posted a connection connected the Bridge Oracle Twitter page with an update connected the swap that brought unwelcome quality to BRG holders: “I anticipation you recognize that we tin not tally the erstwhile declaration again due to the fact that of the problems successful the past, and we person to bash the swap process manually, and this process tin beryllium clip consuming.”

The station did not specify what the problems were.

Finally, connected April 7, 2022, the aforesaid time arsenic Estavi’s large announcement astir the NFT sale, Bridge Oracle announced connected Twitter that the swap was yet happening.

A fig of users rapidly called attraction to imaginable irregularities successful the swap process.

According to Estavi’s post, the Bridge Oracle squad has acceptable up a “bot” to adhd wallets to a swap list, aft which the swap is conducted wholly manually. To suffice for the swap, users indispensable archetypal participate a valid telephone number. If the bot approves the number, the wallet code that contains the BRG tokens tin past beryllium submitted.

If the wallet is successfully added, the bot asks the idiosyncratic to nonstop varying amounts of tron tokens (TRX) to the pursuing address: TZ2DmsPixv8nLEbnxd2hrJ5pFFxF4J7dt6. The requested TRX is to corroborate a idiosyncratic has power of the wallet they person added.

According to BRG holders who person been trying to successfully initiate the swap, the magnitude of TRX they person to nonstop to the code is proportional to the fig of BRG held successful their wallets.

But unverified screenshots of “swap bot” exchanges circulating via societal media among skeptical BRG investors show, for instance, 20,367,369 TRX (worth astir $1.2 cardinal U.S.) being requested to “confirm” a wallet containing 3 cardinal BRG, alternatively than the 3 cardinal TRX ($179,000) 1 would expect nether Estavi’s archetypal 0.1% formula.

The screenshots that are floating astir person alarmed users similar Taha, though helium has an wholly antithetic problem. He has immoderate 500,000 BRG sitting successful 2 crypto exchanges that helium cannot move. Estavi says his squad is negotiating with exchanges to get tokens released but did not item immoderate solutions.

According to information connected blockchain browser TronScan, the wallet has already collected conscionable nether astir 48,000 TRX tokens (around US$2,900). The wallet has lone been progressive for conscionable implicit a week and a bulk of incoming transfers to the wallet occurred aft the swap announcement connected Twitter. Estavi said the wallet is lone being utilized for managing the token swap.

One capitalist scoffed astatine the dilatory and cumbersome process for the “manual” swap, which falls abbreviated of Bridge Oracle’s rhetoric of innovation (its tagline is “Let’s Bridge the Worlds”).

“The method of swapping BRG introduced by [Estavi isn’t] applicable to blockchain!” this capitalist wrote successful a Telegram chat, adding sarcastically: “It’s a caller concept!”

When asked if immoderate of them had received immoderate caller tokens yet, arsenic portion of the swap, 1 investor, “Shapoor,” replied to the radical with: “noooooooooooooooooooo”

Desperate for answers, the BRG investors successful the Telegram radical with Taha and Hawk besides reached retired to the exchanges that listed the BRG tokens. One speech they wrote to was CoinEx which had antecedently listed the archetypal BRG token connected Tron.

“We are sincerely atrocious for the inconvenience,” the reply from CoinEx read, adding, “As we person indicated precise intelligibly that owed to the inability of the BRG task squad offering on-chain transportation of BRG token , the transaction of BRG has been terminated not lone connected CoinEx but besides the full blockchain.”

CoinEx told CoinDesk via an email that due to the fact that the archetypal BRG token connected Tron was suspended by the BRG task team, determination was nary mode to “deposit/withdraw BRG to/from somewhere.” CoinEx besides said it volition beryllium paying “close attraction to the project.”

Investors besides wrote to BKEX, a relatively tiny crypto exchange registered successful the British Virgin Islands, which was flagged by Forbes successful 2019 for replicating and publishing Binance’s trading past arsenic its own. BKEX precocious listed the caller BRG token launched connected the Binance Smart Chain. BKEX’s lawsuit work responded to a idiosyncratic saying customers volition person to “go to the task enactment to pass and woody with it” and that it can’t assistance with the problem.

BKEX did not respond to a petition for remark by property time. In a blog post, BKEX disputed the Forbes article. While thanking Forbes for the coverage, BKEX said that “its knowing of the principles of cryptocurrency trading is inactive comparatively shallow, and it fails to recognize the cross-platform arbitrage behaviour of organization traders.”

When asked wherefore helium decided to re-launch the BRG token connected the Binance Smart Chain, alternatively of keeping the archetypal connected the Tron network, Estavi said it’s due to the fact that “BNB blockchain is much almighty and much suitable for our enactment schedule. We started a ample task connected Oracle and needed a almighty blockchain.”

He said his people marketplace is ne'er Iran and that helium works with planetary standards. On April 8, Estavi announced yet different BRG giveaway connected Twitter. Estavi told CoinDesk the caller BRG token would beryllium listed connected 11 much exchanges successful the coming days.