## Why I'm publishing this now

I have been struggling for years since the Altilly hack. It was hard to get a job, to start something new in the industry, or to carry on with other projects. Even when I got a mortgage for a house, the bank asked where the money for the small deposit came from, and they dug deep into my bad history with Altilly.

My business relationship with Mike ended in late 2022. After that, my only contact with him was about getting money back: first the Solar funds, which he repaid in full by 19 March 2024, and later a promise he made to fund the remaining Altilly refunds for non-saved assets and to pay Chuck, which he never followed up on. Then, in February 2025, Xeggex collapsed after what it called a hack. People tried to link it to me and started threatening me. I have been receiving threatening messages for years now, and I want to be done with it. I am working on something new, and I cannot go on without closing this chapter.

When I first said publicly who I believe Mike is, in February 2025, many people did not believe me (see the examples below). It was hard to argue against that. Then I realised I had the data: the management team's Telegram group. I went through all the messages and saw the hints and the evidence. That is why I built this website and am publishing the chat, read-only.

I could have done this earlier, but it was a chapter I found hard to close. I knew I would have to go through every chat, remove all customer data, and live through the whole experience again. I was also ashamed of how stupid I was then: how I ran a business, posting memes and stupid things. Reading my own messages now feels like reading messages from a child pretending to run an exchange. I was very naive. Some of those messages are worse than embarrassing, and I have left them in (see [What I got wrong](/story#what-i-got-wrong)).

When I was given ownership of the group [#7576]–[#7578], I decided to go all in. A lot of emotions went through me: fear, anger, sadness. I have PTSD from this. I am reliving the threats [#2155]–[#2160], [#2385] and the sleepless nights [#2471]. My health got worse during that time. I lost everything: my money [#2805], [#5602], my employees, my friends, my team. I was broke.

Meanwhile, the man I knew as Mike was moving into a new house with a large indoor pool, which we saw on video [#5094], [#5106], [#5114], [#5123], [#5125]. At the same time he was selling another house, which he said had been bought about nine years earlier [#5471], [#6163]–[#6166]. The chat does not show how the new house or its renovation was paid for, and I do not know. I was soaking in a second-hand, broken bathtub, without even a shower. (In the chat I only joked that I had "no super fancy bath tub" [#5154].) Chuck told us in January 2021 that he had to go to the food bank [#3430]; as I remember it, he relied on it until December 2021. We were both struggling while doing refunds. We collected bottles and returned them at the bottle depot, just to get a few extra pennies to put back into refunds or to pay some bills. My wife was pregnant during that time [#5156].

I never expected that he could do what I now believe he did to me. I saw him as family. I was too naive to even consider that he might have been behind it all. We talked in other team channels, we built things together, we did things together. He felt like family. That is my belief, not a finding: no court or authority has confirmed that Mike took the funds or that he is Paul Vernon.

I just want this to be over. It has been more than five years now.

## What has been said about me

Here are representative public claims. Some are wrong, some partly true, some simply true. Each links to its source and to where you can check it here.

1. **"User stolen at altilly.com by Mr Nayiem Willems"** ([Reddit, January 2021](https://old.reddit.com/r/u_AltillyComScam/comments/ktezjo/)) and, from the same account, "Only 14 days to claim your founds" ([r/banano, January 2021](https://old.reddit.com/r/banano/comments/kr9tm9/)). **The claim window part is true.** Mike had suggested giving people 60 days [#1973], and the form first ran to 26 February 2021 ([r/garlicoin](https://old.reddit.com/r/garlicoin/comments/kmban0/)). On 3 January 2021 I cut that, against Chuck's advice, and the new notice set a final date of 9 January, six days later [#2438], [#2443]–[#2447]. On 27 January Chuck asked for the form link to be removed and replaced by a new link that "only us 3" would know about, for "special circumstances" [#3355]–[#3358]. Thousands of people were too late [#5052]. See [Refunds](/refunds) and [Timeline](/timeline).

2. **"Altilly Exchange FAKE Refunds, Possible Exit Scam"** ([Bitcointalk, February 2022](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5385112.0)). **Partly true.** The database was lost [#1285], [#1524], so we required deposit-confirmation emails [#2146], [#4665], which shut out people with other proof. Our checks were also weaker than I later claimed [#3563]–[#3566]. See [The refund years](/story#the-refund-years).

3. **"They refunded me only a small part"** ([r/MoonCoin, April 2021](https://old.reddit.com/r/MoonCoin/comments/mtxr3d/)), and a Banano holder wrote that Altilly "still have not refunded Banano despite refund confirmations over a year ago" ([r/banano, January 2023](https://old.reddit.com/r/banano/comments/10j6wjo/)). **True for those people.** Refunds were partial, some saved assets fell short [#4580], [#4849], and work was unfinished when the chat ends [#6876], [#7421]. Other users did report being refunded. See [Refunds](/refunds).

4. **"Admins delete my questions in the telegram"** ([Bitcointalk ANN thread, 2021](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5166945.0)). **Partly true.** We removed messages about a class action [#3929]–[#3934]. See [Transparency](/transparency) and [What I got wrong](/story#what-i-got-wrong).

5. **"Nayiem is the perpetrator. He is Karl, and he is Mike… show us proof that Mike existed during Altilly"** ([r/pepecoin, February 2025](https://old.reddit.com/r/pepecoin/comments/1il8ei9/)). **I dispute this.** Mike is a separate member of this chat throughout [#1000]–[#1002], [#1876]–[#1878], and his name was already circulating publicly in January 2021 [#2679]. See [Who was Mike?](/mike) and [the chat](/chat).

6. **"The CEO with the name of 'Karl' has been found to be… Nayiem Willems. He has previously rugged a different exchange"** ([r/pepecoin, February 2025](https://old.reddit.com/r/pepecoin/comments/1iisdmd/)). **I am not Karl, but part of this has a real basis.** In June 2022 Xeggex announced it was being acquired by my company, Dokdo UAB, and its site said it was "a service of Dokdo Global" ([archived notice](https://web.archive.org/web/2022/https://xeggex.com/post/xeggex_user_notice_aquisition)). I announced it and did not complete it. My February 2025 line that I had "no connection" with Mike, and Xeggex's that I was "never involved", were both inaccurate. See [After Altilly](/story#after-altilly).

7. **"You knew Mike… and did and said nothing until after it happened again?"** ([r/pepecoin, February 2025](https://old.reddit.com/r/pepecoin/comments/1ikt45d/)). **True.** I did not warn Xeggex users. I was afraid, I had no proof, I expected not to be believed, and I put getting money back from the 2022 Solar incident ([Solar's statement of 30 November 2022](/evidence/solar-statement-2022-11-30.png)) first. On Discord on 30 November 2022 I wrote to Mike: "We are not going to say anything if you can return the funds in 24hrs." See [After Altilly](/story#after-altilly).

8. **"Nayiem doesn't pass the sniff test"** ([r/pepecoin, February 2025](https://old.reddit.com/r/pepecoin/comments/1ip0qha/)), asking why the CEO had no server access and why users waited 13 days. **Partly fair.** I had no access to the Cherry servers [#1492], [#1493], and that was my failure as CEO. The 13-day gap came from a wrong date in my 2025 write-up. I put the incident on 12 December 2020, mixing up two dates: the day I formed Qredit Ltd (incorporated on 11 December 2020) and the date of the incident. The chat puts the incident at 23-25 December [#1031], [#1103], and the notice went out within days [#1232]. See [What I got wrong in 2025](/story#what-i-got-wrong-in-2025).

## How to read this site

- **[The chat](/chat)** is the primary record. Numbers like [#1232] open a message. Times are UTC-8.
- **[My story](/story)** is my account, with links. Where I write "I believe" or "as I remember it", the chat does not prove it.
- **[Assessment](/assessment)** is a neutral reading, including the parts that hurt me.
- **[Who was Mike?](/mike)** weighs the evidence both ways, without a verdict.
- **[Transparency](/transparency)** lists every removal and gap. The notes I added in 2026 are my beliefs, not records from the time.
- **[Ask a question](/ask)** if something does not add up. I will answer in public.

:::note
Please do not contact, confront or visit anyone named or discussed here. I am convinced "Michael O'Sullivan" was an alias Mike used, possibly with a false passport. That needs investigation by law enforcement; until then, as a precaution, I am not accusing any real person who shares that name.
:::