PROOF Collective COO Resigns to Manage Own Fund

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After criticism on Twitter that his newly formed venture would be a conflict of interest, Ryan Carson is resigning as chief operating officer at PROOF Collective, he announced Monday on Twitter.

Carson said he’ll remain a “very proud shareholder” in the project which he joined as COO about a month after minting a PROOF Collective Pass in December. Carson is leaving to run the 1.21 Gigawatts Fund — a fund dedicated to “networking to secure hard-to-acquire blue chip NFTs” and “maximizing long term value appreciation” for investors.

“I’ve never believed in a project, team and community more in my life. It’s been an honor to help build these amazing communities and I’m SO bullish on the future,” said Carson in a tweet. “I’m also passionate about investing in NFTs and I’d like to spend more of my time focusing on that.”

Some Twitter users expressed concerns about Carson’s tweet Sunday announcing the launch of the fund, especially its timing, which comes days after PROOF raised about $66 million with the minting of Moonbirds, the PROOF profile picture project.

Gotta be the largest conflict of interest I’ve seen in a while

Proof team speed running the founder -> VC pipeline

Need my birds to sell quicker pls https://t.co/k9KD4ZR8xA
— soby🔺🐻 ⛓ (@sobylife) April 25, 2022

PROOF founder Kevin Rose responded to the criticism Sunday night saying “stay tuned for an announcement (Monday).” On Monday, Rose released a statement on Carson, praising him for his help growing PROOF and his work on the Moonbirds mint.

“I will forever be grateful and stoked to have him as an ongoing shareholder and PROOF member,” said Rose of Carson. “Ryan has done a fantastic job prepping for our upcoming conference (I look forward to seeing him there) and PROOF NFT analyst positions, those are moving forward as planned.”

Moonbirds, the PROOF Collective profile picture project, has a floor of 33.5 ETH and has seen more than 113,000 ETH in volume since launching Apr. 16 — more lifetime volume than Doodles, Meebits and Cool Cats, which were all minted in 2021.

Despite the parabolic rise of all things PROOF, Carson annoyed some NFT and Crypto Twitter personalities for posting tweets about the floor price of Moonbirds.

everytime @ryancarson tweets about the price of moonbirds i will sell another moonbird until im out of moonbirds

simple really
— DeeZe (in 🇧🇸) (@DeezeFi) April 23, 2022

On Sunday night Carson tweeted that his newly formed NFT fund, 121g.fund, was “now live,” a few hours after for a front-end web developer who could build him a site for a “quick turn around (1-2 days).” Carson’s fund said it’s looking for investors looking to provide “25 ETH quarterly subscriptions for four quarters minimum” and that the fund will begin in May.

Author Bio

TD Marquis

A veteran journalist and editor with more than a decade's worth of experience, TD helped a small community newspaper in Vermont win a New England Newspaper Association Right to Know Award in 2014. TD helped compile five years' worth of invoices to uncover a long-established practice of small-town government officials paying themselves six figures to do small jobs around town. TD discovered NFTs with Top Shot in 2021 and his first NFTs on ETH were saving two Mooncats. He is now the proud owner of Rowhome #61 and 1,300 other NFTs of questionable value. He also sent 4 ETH to a fake Mekaverse site and wants Lucky Trader readers to avoid the same fate.

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