NFT Project Co-Creator Ousted Off Team for Previous Sexual Assault Abuse | 4.16.22

GM Ser,

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NFT Project Co-Creator Ousted Off Team for Previous Sexual Assault Abuse

With NFTs and the vast world of crypto, it’s normal to make friends and connections with pseudonyms online. And as fun and community oriented as that may be, you still never know you could be dealing with in cyberspace. 

Popular World of Warcraft streamer who went by pseudonyms MethodJosh and Joshpriest was recently ousted by his NFT community for allegations of sexual abuse and the grooming of minors in 2020. His real name, Josh Thompson, a native of the UK.

Thompson had recently taken on a role in a developing NFT project, Gem.xyz. To the Gem community, Thompson was known as 'Neso.' Upon the allegations rising to the surface and the virtual and real colliding, Gem co-founder Lorens Huculak posted an announcement to Gem’s Discord announcing Thompson’s departure from the team.

“[A] member of the team, Neso, has engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct…” he wrote to let his community know. 

The news, a shock to the entire Gem team and even those outside of it. An anonymous source close to the founders said to Buzzfeed, “He seemed relatively normal; that’s why this was so shocking.” He “painted himself as a nice, helpful guy.”

Thompson, who once upon a time boasted 182k Twitch followers, has been permanently banned from the platform. Twitch saying that “all ties were severed.”

The unknown abyss that is the internet is causing the exploding NFT landscape to question whether or not you can just hire remote developers on anything but a legal name. Similar issues in the space have caused a wave of doxing, where people will be open and forward about who they are in real life and online. 

Whether in the physical world or digital, the phrase rings true just the same: be safe out there.