On November 26th one of the core contributors of Methera reached out to me in the Metis developers Telegram channel and asked if I could help them out.
So I joined a private Telegram group with their 2 co-founders Victor and Seth.
They explained that their frontend would be “readily available” by Thursday, but that they were behind on “backend development”.
So I start asking them some deeper questions about design decisions for their Liquid Restaking Token. Their answer: “These decisions have not been made yet. None of it. We were supposed to proceed with these discussions and decisions but we had to let go of the previous dev.”
I tell them I already have a full-time position and can’t take a full time job, but that I can help out writing a few smart contracts. So I quickly whip up a proof-of-concept contract which allows to deposit artMetis and seMetis as collateral in a yMetis contract.
I also do some risk analysis and alert them of the fact that artMetis is fully redeemable and price is arbitraged, but that seMetis is only 70% liquid, 30% vested and trading below peg.
Eventually they introduce a frontend developer who shows a frontend which is just the very old deprecated frontend from Lido in which he replaced the icons with Methera icons.
When confronting him with fact that it uses hardcoded networks in deprecated lido-js-sdk libraries and is not easily customizable for metis. I get a lecture how they need to add wallet connect features etc. first.
A bit later I get a message from Victor that the frontend dev is “shying away from the job”, if I know a frontend dev.
At this point I believe Methera to be run by people who don’t have a clue and need help.
I start asking about their funding and treasury.
Victor answers they plan to have their governance token, yMetis, artMetis,seMetis, Metis and USDC in their treasury. They plan a team allocation and monthly compensation.
After this “proposal” it starts to get funky. His Telegram @osteroot gets removed, which also removes the main Methera Telegram community channel.
Since this is serious red flag, I immediatly start to ask around what happened.
The other co-founder Seth replied: “Hey Purple, telegram deactivated his account likely due to the outreach we’ve both been doing to secure partnerships for Methera. He’s already working on a new account and should be back soon.”
I ask if there is a way to contact him and get an email “[email protected]” on a domain created only a few days earlier. (another red flag)
Victor comes back with a new Telegram account @osterroot and says: “My account got compromised, I had to let it go.”
I tell him this does not look good and he replies “Yeah I know but we’re working on building this new community up and carefully so this never happens again”.
Since all these red flag warrant a deeper look, I start doing some OSINT and found that osterroot acount on reddit is also suspended.
When asked about it if he knows how he got compromised, what has been compromised and if he took clean up security measures, this was his answer: “Might have been a session hijacking or malware. I’m usually very careful on clicking on sites on here however I did used a public computer to access my account a couple of days ago. Lesson learnt (the hard way)
The hacker did try to get money from friends and family, impersonating me to ask for money. No wallet information was compromised.”
The team’s explanation is vague, attributing it to “reaching out for deals.” Having a project’s key figure lose primary communication channels without a credible explanation is unusual and raises doubts about legitimacy. While account compromises can happen, the explanation is vague and doesn’t detail comprehensive remediation steps. This raises concerns about overall security practices and whether they can safeguard more critical project assets.
The team mentions wanting to raise capital by exchanging tokens with Metis and other partners. They initially confuse “yMetis” with their governance token, which suggests a lack of clarity regarding their own tokenomics. They also talk about “seed rounds,” “private round,” and “liquidity rental” but provide no concrete details on how these will be structured or executed. Suggesting that an OTC token-for-token exchange with Metis would be considered “fundraising” is suspicious. If it doesn’t involve external funding sources or stable assets, it may simply be a token swap without generating real capital.
They claim that audit partners agreed to be paid in their governance token rather than stable or established assets. Credible audit firms typically require stable, reputable payment (e.g., ETH, stablecoins, or fiat). Relying on a new project’s unestablished token is unusual and can indicate either non-reputable auditors or a lack of genuine external audit partners.
References to “Artemis,” “ENKI,” and “Metis” are made, stating that these partners will contribute to marketing or accepting token swaps without concrete evidence is a red flag. Without transparent details, such claims can be mere name-dropping to sound credible.
The team’s NFT strategy includes an “expandable supply,” a “staking module,” “revenue distribution,” and even fractionalization before establishing a basic track record. Launching multiple complex features all at once is often a sign that the team may be overpromising, especially without showing any code or proof-of-concept.
○ Publicly, they convey confidence and imminent progress to users (e.g., “Yessir! Making a few adjustments and it’ll be launched afterwards”), suggesting that the frontend launch is just around the corner. However, in private messages, the founder admits that the current frontend developer is “shying away from the job,” indicating serious internal setbacks and uncertainties. This contradiction implies that the team may be concealing the true state of development from the community. Instead of transparently addressing delays or staffing issues, they present an overly optimistic front publicly, misleading users and investors about the project’s actual readiness and internal challenges.
Publicly they communicate about the NFTs: “Nothing set in stone yet for the launch date, but trust me, the art is absolutely fire. 
You’re gonna want to mint one when the time comes, expect something sick and worth the wait! 
”
Privately they tell me the name of a very well known trusted figure in the Metis community when asked about the artist and say “We have an artist currently working on the art!”
When asking the individual they named in private if he was helping Methera in any way, he replied “No I was gonna help them with some NFTs but I ended up turning it down. Couldnt make their deadline”
So Methera is clearly lying about it both in public and private communication.
When digging a little bit deeper, I notice that they created a new Telegram after the old one got removed which they set up before they communicated on discord and X that their previous Telegram got compromised.
When looking at the members of that TG I notice that there are none of the users who joined after CEG are there.
I notice a TG account called @Xenon_onbase and recognize the prefix from the discord handle: xenon_meth [The Metherian]: Originally known as W!lson#6546
I also notice the tagline of this @Xenon_onbase account which says “FunFi on base”
So I lookup on geckoterminal the FunFi contract on the Base network and find an unverified contract https://basescan.org/address/0x5b3cac6a978681295e799e59599ec609572f7fba which seems to be part of a cluster of hundreds of tokens created with same supply on Base from the same deployer all unverified contracts.
Each of those tokens have 1B total supply, the deployer creates liquidity of 100k tokens with 0.015 ETH collateral, there are a few swaps and there is an unknown 0xb958798a call on the unverified contract.
Mass deployment of unverified contracts is a serious red flag, the ratio of supply he mints versus the liquidity size is also not good. This stinks and is clearly not good behavior.
Such an association severely undermines trust, suggesting that the team may be involved in or aligned with known fraudulent networks.
Conclusion:
The project’s communications reveal multiple red flags: compromised accounts with minimal transparency, unclear funding and tokenomics strategies, questionable auditor payment terms, vague partnerships, and overly complex product promises without tangible proof.
Co-founder claims his account was used to get money from “friends and family”. These factors suggest a high level of risk and warrant a thorough independent review before engaging with the project.