This article comes from Twitter, the original author: LlamaX project core contributor @Tendeeno

Compiled by: Moni

On March 19, 0xngmi, the founder of the on-chain analysis platform DefiLlama, announced that his team had split over whether to issue tokens, and has now launched a forked version of the website Llama.Fi. So, what is the ins and outs of this matter? @Tendeeno, a core contributor to the LlamaX project, summarized what happened to DeFiLlama in a relatively fair way on social media:

In fact, the crypto community should know that DefiLlama is not the only llama project, there are also llamanodes, llamanews and llamafolio, etc., which are completely independent. But in comparison, the success of DeFiLlama (DL) can be said to be 100 times that of any other project (of course, other projects also have very talented teams, and I believe they will definitely succeed). Now the value of DefiLlama has almost accounted for more than 95% of the value of all "LlamaCorp" projects.

DefiLlama was initiated by 0xLLam4 and 0xngmi helped build it. Soon 0xngmi took over all the work of the project. It is no exaggeration to say that 0xngmi bears at least 90% of the responsibility for DefiLlama's current success. He not only leads the DefiLlama team, but is also a major shareholder of DefiLlama.

However, the current problem is: DefiLlama has not generated any profit so far, which is also something the entire team is working on... But another co-founder (0xLLam4) felt that he could not wait any longer, so he came up with a solution that could quickly make a profit: launching the DL token.

However, the team led by 0xngmi has always opposed the issuance of tokens. They feel that fundamentally, tokens have no value because DefiLlama is not a protocol and tokens cannot legally become a form of equity. Not only that, once the token price drops, people will not focus on the DefiLlama platform, but only on the price figures.

DefiLlama co-founder 0xLLam4 did not accept 0xngmi's explanation and still insisted that the token would be launched regardless of whether the DefiLlama team approved it. In 0xngmi's view, this behavior is undoubtedly a "hostile takeover" of DefiLlama... because he does not want the value and reputation of the project to be included in the token.

While it was possible that the token would not launch without the approval of the team, what 0xngmi didn’t expect was that the “DL Token” had already been launched and code had been written to support it (DefiLlama co-founder 0xLLam4 didn’t tell anyone). 0xngmi believed that if the token was issued, there would really be no turning back, which would forever tarnish DefiLlama’s reputation and kill everything they had worked hard to build over the years.

The real problem is that the co-founder has control over DefiLlama’s official Twitter and domain, which means they can announce the token launch at any time. Essentially, the DefiLlama development team has been held hostage, so the DefiLlama team decided to:

If a DL token issuance is inevitable, the only way to do it is to fork DefiLlama with a new name and create a new Twitter and domain.

And that’s why you saw the DeFiLlama team announce that they are forking the project to Llama.fi.

In the next few days, the crypto community may see different contributors and employees of llamacorp go back and forth on who is right and who is wrong. Frankly, it's a terrible situation for everyone involved. It should be noted that the DefiLlama team is still working hard to find a solution. The best case scenario is that this is a huge misunderstanding between the team and things can be resolved amicably in the end.

Note: @Tendeeno has specifically clarified that he is just an unpaid community contributor, not on any official team, and just likes DefiLlama and wants to see them succeed.