Source: Wangarian

Compiled by: Odaily Golem

Editor's Note: On January 15, well-known trader Eugene Ng Ah Sio was exposed by user @MiyaHedge on the X platform for his real identity, claiming that he is the co-founder of Tangent Ventures, Darryl Wang (@0xWangarian), and also an early-stage investor in the ENA token. Previously, the Eugene account had publicly "shilled" ENA and multiple tokens. Given his VC's true identity, Darryl Wang was accused of fraud or insider trading, among other illegal activities.

Facing numerous accusations, Darryl Wang today released a lengthy article in response, confirming that Eugene Ng Ah Sio (@0xENAS) is indeed his personal account, and also refuting the allegations one by one, including selling undisclosed VC allocations, pumping and dumping, charging for promotions, and fabricating trading records.

Odaily now summarizes the key points of his response for readers to quickly understand.

Setting up an anonymous account was for security reasons

Darryl Wang said the initial purpose of creating the Eugene Ng Ah Sio (@0xENAS) account was to achieve personal challenges and make his trading profits and losses transparent, so that he could be judged without preconceptions and elitism.

However, like many others, Darryl Wang decided not to disclose his identity for personal safety reasons, as he was well aware of the risks of exposing large-scale trading and putting himself in the public eye, especially the security risks. Therefore, as the number of followers grew, he made the initially public API private and shifted to sharing trading strategies and monthly summaries.

Now, due to "doxing" and some false but provocative accusations, his personal privacy and the safety of those around him have been threatened, so Darryl Wang says he can no longer operate the account anonymously, and has decided to directly respond to the community's accusations, namely:

• Selling undisclosed VC allocations and using the influence of the Eugene account to promote them to followers;
• Pumping and dumping through the Eugene account by exploiting followers;
• Charging for promotion of certain tokens through the Eugene account;
• Fabricating Eugene's trading records, with the source of trading funds linked to the background VC and family.

Clarification on the secret sale of VC token allocations

Only 2 of the personal trading tokens overlap with Tangent

Darryl Wang stated that the Eugene account is solely managed by him and is unrelated to Tangent's angel investments. The partner in charge of angel investments, Jason, cannot control his trading and tweets.

Since the account was established, among the more than 100 tokens Eugene has disclosed trading, only 2 happened to overlap with Tangent's angel investments, but he still remains extremely cautious to ensure that any information about token market conditions posted on the Eugene account will not affect any angel investments.

Ethena team also unaware of Eugene's true identity

Regarding the recent accusation that he exited an undisclosed VC angel investment and disguised it as an actual position that Eugene did not establish, Darryl Wang stated that neither he nor Tangent have exited any part of these investments. Tangent partner Jason met with Ethena's founders in mid-2023, and Tangent's angel investment department invested in Ethena in July 2023 and again in February 2024. These investments have multi-year lock-up periods and are publicly verifiable. Given that all private investments are locked up, Tangent could not have sold any angel round allocations, so Darryl Wang stated that any allegations of token dumping are not only fabricated, but also functionally impossible.

In the third quarter of 2024, the Eugene account published an article on the liquidity advantages of ENA, and Darryl Wang stated that he explicitly mentioned being long on ENA in the article, but did not comment on Tangent's angel investment to avoid exposing his identity.

Excerpt from Ethena article, Darryl Wang's financial disclosure

The Ethena team was also unaware of the true identity behind Eugene, and did not participate in the creation of the article. All the information provided in the article is publicly verifiable, and Darryl Wang stated that the article clearly demonstrates how he thinks about the problem from a liquidity perspective, and even outlines the main risks Ethena will face with VC unlocks starting in April 2025.

Excerpt from Ethena article, emphasizing VC unlocks as a risk to ENA

Tangent has not yet exited any angel investment in Ethena

Darryl Wang stated that he established a position about 100 times the size of Tangent's angel investment amount. At the time the article was published, the ENA price was $0.28, and today it has risen to $0.90, about three times the price at the time of publication.

Darryl Wang also stated that the entire article discussed this liquidity position he independently established. From the publication of the article until today, Tangent has not yet exited any of its angel investments in Ethena.

When Jason cited Eugene's tweets, he fully disclosed Tangent's position in Ethena, but at Darryl Wang's request, his true identity was not publicly revealed. Darryl Wang said in hindsight this was a misjudgment, and he deeply apologizes for any views that intentionally distorted the facts.

In Eugene's tweets about the SEI token, Darryl Wang stated that his last mention was in a LTF trading setup in December 2023, while the earliest VC unlock occurred 9 months later in August 2024.

Only publish token tweets that follow personal principles

As the Eugene account's followers grew, Darryl Wang said he followed two principles when posting tweets about tokens:

• They must be listed on Binance perpetual contracts to ensure sufficient liquidity;
• Never use immediate bot-related price pressure as liquidity to sell.

Darryl Wang said he had violated the first rule before, trying to share investment thoughts on a certain on-chain token, but the results were not ideal. Since then, he has avoided sharing views on on-chain tokens.

Darryl Wang also frankly stated that due to his high trading frequency and short holding periods, it means that if you follow his trades, you may still be holding when he has already closed his position, so he has always reminded people of the risks they would bear if they choose to copy his trades, and has always been transparent about the scale of his losses.

Never participated in "KOL trading"

Darryl Wang stated that he has never accepted any payment in funds or tokens to promote cryptocurrencies or structures through the Eugene account. During this cycle, there have been many so-called "KOL trading" deals, which offer extremely short and predatory unlocking periods, clearly different from the risk investment deals Tangent participates in, which typically require at least 3-4 years of token lockup and even longer for equity.

To clarify, Darryl Wang stated that since the establishment of the Eugene account, neither Tangent, Jason, nor he himself have participated in any "KOL trading". In supporting multiple startups through Tangent's angel investment department, all of these have been publicly announced. When Eugene mentioned certain tokens on Twitter, it was purely due to the attractiveness of the trade itself, and not to generate interest in angel investments, especially since over 80% of Tangent's venture investments do not have tokens.

Darryl Wang also clarified that he has never personally or instructed Jason to exit any of Tangent's angel investments after sharing any related content, and these implications are completely fabricated for the purpose of defamation.

Sharing his rags-to-riches story

The whistleblower may have ulterior motives

Darryl Wang revealed that in the past 12 hours, photos of his family members have been circulated to support the threats based on the false accusations, which has caused his family great distress. He emphasized that while exposing his personal information is one thing, publicly endangering his family and using deliberately inaccurate and provocative language is another.

So in the process of preparing this response, he also obtained information about the identities of the original poster and another related party, but morally does not want to share this information.

Became wealthy through DeFi

Regarding the accusation that the trading funds in the Eugene account were backed by his family's wealth, Darryl Wang shared his rags-to-riches story:

Darryl Wang first encountered cryptocurrency during the DeFi summer of 2020. In October 2020, he resigned from his investment banking job and invested $100,000 of his savings into cryptocurrency, joining DeFiance Capital as a junior analyst.

During the 2020-2021 bull market, Darryl Wang accumulated capital through trading and "shilling" (high-risk token trading) along with other degens, and ended the cycle profitably during the FTX collapse, having enough funds to provide initial capital for Tangent without external investors.

It was also during this time that Darryl Wang created the account of Eugene, as a personal account, initially without the involvement or assistance of the Tangent team, and the rest is now known to everyone.

Darryl Wang stated that regardless of whether the public believes it or not, the fact is that the funds managed by Eugene were funded by his personal resources (and not external funds), and he did not receive any external services or seek any capital.

Historical trading performance of Eugene from January 2023 to January 2025 (source: https://app.coinmarketman.com/dashboard/leaderboard)

Epilogue: Aspired to become an anonymous legend

Darryl Wang and Jason co-founded Tangent, with the belief of becoming long-term supporters of the industry, leveraging Darryl's trading expertise and Jason's angel investing skills. Eugene was his personal creation, intended to trade with his own capital and independent decision-making, free from any constraints.

Darryl Wang stated that he had hoped to give back to others like many anonymous legends, sharing his ideas and process.

Although he has always been transparent about his profits and losses, some have chosen to target and defame his reputation. Ironically, Darryl Wang said that one of the reasons for creating the Eugene account was to prove that a person's background does not matter, but rather their process and trading discipline, yet his own background has now become the main target of those trying to slander him.

Darryl Wang also stated that this will be his first and last response to these allegations, and if the other party believes they have a legal basis, he is fully prepared to respond accordingly.