- Previous reporting was released without complete visibility into internal Eclipse company documents.
- This article's goal is to rectify errors in earlier coverage to correct broader misunderstandings.
Earlier reporting by DL News and others (including CoinDesk and The Block) misrepresented online developments related to Eclipse founder Neel Somani. The reporting was made without full information. Now, reviewing internal company documents and complete information, this piece intends to rectify the errors in previous coverage.
1. Neel Somani chose to move from CEO to Chairman and retained full control of Eclipse.
Somani was under no obligation to depart as Chief Executive Officer. Internal company documents at Eclipse and contemporaneous investor communications confirm that Somani both appointed Vijay Chetty as CEO and retained the ability to reinstate himself at any point. The transition was incorrectly characterized as an "ouster."
An X post from investor Hack VC was momentarily posted regarding the transition, but shortly deleted. That deleted post (among other deleted posts) was still referenced in coverage by CoinDesk and The Block. The additional evidence for the "ouster" is that Somani's X bio changed. Neither is as strong as Eclipse's own governance documents.
2. No formal complaints were ever filed to Eclipse or any authority. Only posts on X exist.
The online rumors are varied and do not contain substantive, falsifiable details. Investors and the company were not privy to any special information; the online posts are the only details available.
DL News has confirmed that there have been no formal complaints of any kind regarding Somani. In addition, it is confirmed that Somani filed a John Doe defamation suit in California to unmask the anonymous X accounts. For example, the reporting originated from a secondhand allegation by a pseudonymous account. As it turns out, the account holder worked for the owner of The Block, who first reported on this story. That relationship was not disclosed in the reporting.
3. Further investigation found no substantiation for the claims.
DL News reviewed the conclusions of an independent investigation commissioned by Eclipse. According to the report, investigators did not substantiate the allegations reviewed and found no evidence supporting the claims presented to them.
DL News' earlier reporting adopted the terminology used in Somani's own public statement. Upon reviewing the underlying X posts and the independent investigation, DL News concluded that its reporting should have more precisely described the allegations as unverified online rumors rather than characterizing them as "alleged misconduct."
4. Reputable outlets have deleted their coverage.
Journals including Cointelegraph, Bitcoin.com, Finance Feeds, DeFi Planet, and over a dozen others have followed suit in deleting their previous reporting. According to documentation provided by Eclipse, some outlets that published articles about the rumors received payment to distribute that negative coverage about Somani. Other publishers, including CoinDesk and various mirror sites, have declined or not responded to requests to update or remove their articles, despite the company providing factual corrections.
Based on the information now available to us, including documents reviewed after our initial reporting, we believe these corrections more accurately reflect the facts.
Reach out to the author at team@dlnews.com.