Fetch.ai has signaled a possible end to its conflict with the Ocean Protocol Foundation, proposing a resolution that could prevent an extended court battle.
In a Thursday X Spaces discussion, Fetch.ai CEO Humayun Sheikh announced that the company would withdraw all legal actions if Ocean Protocol agreed to return 286 million FET tokens, which Fetch claims were wrongfully sold during their merger process.
“They’re expecting a legal proposal from us for the return of the tokens,” Sheikh said. “You’ll have my letter tomorrow. The offer is simple — give the tokens back to the community, and I’ll drop every legal claim.”
Sheikh also offered to pay the associated legal costs, aiming for a fast and amicable settlement.
According to GeoStaking, a validator node running on Fetch.ai that helped mediate between the two projects, Ocean Protocol would be willing to return the tokens once a formal written proposal is submitted.
However, an Ocean Protocol spokesperson told reporters that their legal team had not yet received any official documentation.
“We’ve repeatedly asked for a written proposal to review through our attorneys,” the spokesperson said. “Until that happens, we can’t take any verbal statements seriously.”
If finalized, the agreement would end weeks of tension between the two AI-focused blockchain projects and spare both from costly litigation that could harm their reputations.
The latest development follows Sheikh’s public $250,000 bounty for information identifying the signatories of the OceanDAO multisig wallet and any links to the Ocean Protocol Foundation.
A multisignature (multisig) wallet requires multiple approvals before any transaction can be executed — often used for additional security in blockchain governance.
Ocean Protocol accused of $120M token sell-off
Despite Ocean Protocol denying any wrongdoing, blockchain data from Bubblemaps suggests that a wallet associated with the foundation swapped around 661 million OCEAN tokens for 286 million FET coins, valued at roughly $120 million at the time.
Of that amount, about 160 million FET were reportedly sent to Binance, while 109 million went to GSR Markets.
Ocean Protocol officially exited the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) on October 9, without addressing the disputed token movements.
Since the alliance’s formation in March 2024, the FET token has plunged more than 93%, from a peak of $3.22 to about $0.26 at press time.
Ocean Protocol founder Bruce Pon rejected claims that the project’s departure caused the decline.
“The price crash was driven by broader market volatility,” Pon wrote in a Thursday blog post. “SingularityNET and Fetch drained liquidity from the ecosystem by offloading nearly $500 million worth of FET tokens. It was a reckless deal that didn’t anticipate a 45% market drop.”
Pon added that Ocean’s decision to leave the alliance was based on “ethical concerns” and promised to release a detailed rebuttal addressing each accusation against the project.
