Alchemist

Basics

• A consultancy and investment firm for high-potential blockchain companies.
• "Alchemist is a full-service blockchain advisory and investment company, specializing in token sales and end-to-end product development of blockchain applications. Alchemist and/or its founder, Steven Nerayoff, have been advisors or investors in 32 projects (4-2019) including Ethereum, tZERO, Lisk, and AION."

Legal Troubles of Nerayoff and Hlady (9-2019)

• According to this article from CoinDesk, Nerayoff committed extortion:

"U.S. law enforcement has charged Steven Nerayoff with extortion.

Nerayoff, an attorney and founder of blockchain consulting firm Alchemist, was arrested Wednesday morning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and was scheduled to face charges before a federal court in Brooklyn in the afternoon. The FBI also arrested Michael Hlady, an Alchemist associate.

Nerayoff and Hlady face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the alleged scheme, described as “an old-fashioned shakedown” by the United States Attorney Office’s for the Eastern District of New York (part of the Department of Justice) and “an age-old extortion scheme … with a modern-day twist” by the FBI.

Nerayoff’s attorney, Avi Moskowitz, told CoinDesk that “a civil dispute has been improperly distorted into a criminal matter. Mr. Neryaoff looks forward to the truth coming out and clearing his name.

According to the government’s complaint, Nerayoff’s firm was tapped to advise an undisclosed, Seattle-based startup — dubbed “Company 1” in court documents – in July 2017. Nerayoff began demanding larger than contractually agreed-upon ethereum payouts for his help with the company’s initial coin offering (ICO) that coming fall, the complaint says,

Per the agreement, Nerayoff was entitled to 22.5 percent of all the cryptocurrency tokens sold during the ICO as well as 22.5 percent of all the funds raised by Company 1 “regardless of the method and manner in which [the funds] are raised.”

Before the ICO occurred, Nerayoff demanded higher compensation from Company 1 executives, identified as John and Jane Doe. Through an email sent to the company’s executives, Nerayoff demanded 30,000 ETH if the pre-sale and crowd sale surpassed 60,000 ETH in addition to a large allotment of the Company 1’s ICO token, the complaint says.

If not, Nerayoff promised to “sabotage the crowd sale, generate negative press for Company 1 and use his contacts with influential people to ‘destroy’ Company 1,” the DOJ alleged.

Company 1 agreed to the payout despite not receiving additional compensating services, the complaint says.

The ICO raised 55,677 ETH during the pre-sale of the token. A crowd sale the following two months raised an additional 20,000 ETH, totaling 75,677 ETH raised, worth about $32 million at the time. Of the 75,766 ETH raised, Nerayoff received 30,000.

The following March, Nerayoff demanded a 10,000 ETH “loan” from Company 1 worth $4.45 million at the time, the complaint says. Nerayoff also introduced Company 1 to Hlady, his “operations guy.”

According to court documents, “Nerayoff claimed Hlady was a former government agent who could carry firearms through airports. On separate occasions, Hlady told Jane Doe … that he had been shot at and had killed people, that he had ‘taken down’ a head of state, and that he had been a part of the Irish Republican Army, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI.”

That same month, Jane Doe visited Nerayoff at his New York home and stayed the night. During the evening, Hlady entered her guest room, where she was sleeping by herself. Turning on the light and pulling a chair up to her bed, Hlady demanded the 10,000 ETH loan or they would “crush” her company, and Nerayoff later entered the room and made a similar threat, according to the complaint.

Nerayoff and Hlady continued to threaten Jane Doe through iMessages and personal threats thereafter, including telling her where her child attended school.

Jane Doe instructed a Company 1 employee to pay the 10,000 ETH loan to Nerayoff between March 28 and April 1, 2018. The loan was never repaid by Nerayoff, according to the U.S. attorney."

Team, investors, etc.

• Steven Nerayoff; CEO & Founder
• Jack Lynch; COO
• Vekrum Kaushik; CSO
• Gary Rubinoff; MD, Alchemist Blockchain Techstars Accelerator
• Joe Murray; Controller
• Michael Hlady, an Alchemist associate