Solana Co-Founder Accused of Profiting from Ex-Wife’s SOL
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One of Solana’s co-founders, Stephen Akridge, who is also a former principal engineer at Solana Labs, is currently facing a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Elisa Rossi.
Rossi filed a lawsuit in San Francisco’s Superior Court, claiming that Akridge secretly earned millions from staking rewards using her SOL tokens. What’s more, he did so without her knowing, according to the allegations.
The complaint primarily centers on the couple’s divorce agreement, which was signed in March of this year. The agreement divided the pair’s SOL holdings. Now, however, Rossi insists that Akridge exploited her lack of expertise in cryptocurrencies to maintain access to her SOL coins and continue staking them to make further profits which he kept for himself.
The lawsuit further says that Akridge gave Rossi wallet authority over three accounts, but he retained access, which let him access the wallets to stake the tokens and earn rewards. Rossi did not discover this until May, two months later.
The precise number of SOL coins and the amount that Akridge allegedly stole remain redacted in the court documents. However, it was noted that the dispute revolves around sums that go beyond $25,000.
As for Akridge’s response to the allegations, Rossi described it as dismissive. She sent him repeated messages regarding the issue between May and December 2024, to which he responded by laughing at her and refusing to return the money made through staking.
Solana’s Uncertain Status Might Complicate The Case
At the time of the lawsuit, Solana’s price was $194, after previously peaking at $263 a month ago. This year has seen a major recovery of crypto prices, led by Bitcoin, which skyrocketed beyond $107,000 per coin.
Other than BTC, major trends such as meme coins have also brought a lot of users to the blockchain. Staking, on the other hand, remains the most popular decentralized finance (DeFi) activity, where users lock up their cryptocurrencies and over time receive rewards, typically in the form of the same coin or token.
Locking up SOL allows them to validate transactions and earn rewards, which is a concept central to the dispute. And, while Bitcoin and Ethereum have received a regulatory nod from the US SEC as not-securities, the same cannot be said about Solana, another popular blockchain project, which could end up complicating the case further.
