The Death of Hsin-Ju: A Prelude to Conspiracy

Author: Black Mario

The circumstances surrounding Hsin-Ju's death in the Mojave Desert remain inconclusive, but it seems easy for people to fall into conspiracy theories.

Hsin-Ju Chuang, former partner and platform head at Hack VC. On August 24, 2026, she was found dead in a vehicle near an I-15 highway exit in the Mojave Desert, California, at the age of 37. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

According to public records from the San Bernardino County coroner, at 9:47 PM on August 24, California Highway Patrol responded to a location south of Field Road on I-15 South and confirmed the death of 37-year-old Hsin-Ju Chuang.

The desert stretch of I-15 heading from Barstow to Nevada

As of now, the cause of Hsin-Ju's death remains unclear, and the matter has not been classified as a criminal case.

Currently, there is widespread speculation that her former company, Hack VC, may have used certain means to make her physically disappear from the earth.

Regardless, I believe Hsin-Ju's death is a prelude to the dark side of cryptocurrency!

The Grievances Between Hsin-Ju and Hack VC

About a year ago, Hsin-Ju, who was employed at Hack VC, had a labor dispute with the company.

According to Hsin-Ju's own statements released on August 24, during her tenure at Hack VC, she suffered from Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia, yet still bore the burden of high-intensity work, including a series of events during Hack Summit and Korea Blockchain Week.

Original post https://x.com/hsinju/status/2091571258869879015

She claimed that she worked 13 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, and could only sleep 0 to 4 hours each night. The work was so painful and torturous that Hsin-Ju even contemplated suicide.

She also accused Hack VC co-founder Alex Pack and partner Daniel Bulaevsky of pressuring her when she attempted to exit the project and leave the company, including threats of a so-called "industry blacklist."

Of course, all of these are unilateral accusations made by Hsin-Ju, but Hack VC disagrees with her claims, leading to a situation where both sides have their own arguments.

Welcome post from Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack when Hsin-Ju joined https://x.com/alpackaP/status/1899108367072661597

From a positional standpoint, Hsin-Ju seemed to play a significant role at Hack VC.

As an industry veteran, she worked on growth at Stellar in her early years, joined the then-early Solana team as the head of growth in 2018, later founded Dystopia Labs, organized Ethereum developer events for a long time, and then served as the head of growth at Fhenix before ultimately becoming a partner and platform head at Hack VC.

From the perspective of Hsin-Ju, who has been deeply involved in the industry for many years, her core asset is essentially her network of industry relationships. Conferences, project parties, developers, funds, media, investors, introductions, endorsements—these elements collectively constitute her professional value.

In traditional industries, the term "blacklist" might just be a casual remark from a leader, but in the VC and crypto sectors, which heavily rely on relational networks, the nature is quite different.

Although crypto emphasizes permissionless and decentralized principles on-chain, from the perspective of a practitioner or employee, her resume, funding relationships, industry reputation, and collaboration opportunities all exist off-chain.

Especially in the field of crypto VC, which is a typical acquaintances' society, many positions are not publicly advertised, and some project funding is not publicly tendered; many opportunities arise from internal recruitment or relational connections.

While on-chain assets have high exit freedom, off-chain professional relationships are highly centralized. In other words, a wallet can move freely, but in the crypto industry, especially in such core areas, an individual's livelihood cannot be easily secured.

On the other hand, there is a significant disparity in power between the two parties.

Hack VC is a top-tier VC in the crypto industry, having invested in numerous leading projects including EigenLayer, Goldfinch, Mysten Labs (Sui), io.net, Elixir, and Berachain.

As of the third quarter of 2025, its AUM has reached approximately $700 million.

So for an individual, what you face is not merely a company; you are confronting the capital, connections, and industry credit network behind that company.

This is also why Hsin-Ju is so wary of the so-called industry blacklist. After all, a few phone calls and background checks from Hack VC, combined with a mark indicating that this person is difficult to work with, could have a real impact on Hsin-Ju's career.

An Unresolvable Settlement

According to Hsin-Ju, both parties' lawyers have been in contact for nearly a year, preparing to enter the private mediation and settlement phase, but she ultimately fired her lawyer and refused to accept compensation that came with confidentiality conditions from Hack VC.

Hsin-Ju publicly stated that she would rather take $0 than exchange silence for a settlement, announcing that she would disclose written evidence she retained regarding her employment at Hack VC and subsequent disputes on August 26, to substantiate her previous claims about high-intensity work, threats of industry blacklisting, insurance handling, and subsequent negotiations.

Hack VC subsequently responded that the company had noted her post and was concerned about her health, but both parties have significant disagreements regarding the events, and for privacy reasons, they will not publicly discuss specific details for now.

Hack VC co-founder Alexander Pack stated on social media yesterday that he had not directly spoken with Hsin-Ju for over 10 months, confirming that they have been at odds for quite some time,

https://x.com/alpackaP/status/2102758451390595098

Of course, we don't need to demonize normal business settlements; confidentiality clauses are very common in labor and commercial disputes and do not inherently imply wrongdoing.

From a structural perspective, once Hsin-Ju refuses to settle and publicly discloses the aforementioned evidence she possesses, the nature of the entire matter will change.

In fact, during the private mediation phase, this is a matter between the lawyers of both parties, but once she makes the evidence public, it will shift from a legal issue to a reputational issue.

At that point, LPs of the Hack VC fund, invested projects, other employees, partners, and so on will pay attention to this matter, and it will ultimately affect Hack VC's credibility to some extent.

Thus, it is not difficult to see that Hsin-Ju is extremely dissatisfied with the settlement conditions proposed by Hack VC and believes that the contradictions between the two parties have reached an irreconcilable point. At this moment, she hopes to drag a dispute that could have remained in private space back into the public sphere.

So she announced on August 24 that she would refuse to settle and previewed the public disclosure of evidence on August 26.

However, on the night of August 24, she was found dead in the Mojave Desert.

The proximity of these two time points is striking. So close that anyone who sees this timeline would inevitably make associations.

Yet, associations remain mere associations.

Currently, we have no evidence to prove that Hack VC, any management personnel, or this labor dispute has a causal relationship with her death.

She had previously mentioned her Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia, and had also stated that she had experienced a suicidal episode.

Death could stem from illness, accidents, environmental factors, or possibly other circumstances we are currently unaware of.

Until the coroner and police provide more information, the term "silencing" is, in my opinion, merely a conspiracy theory.

Why do people naturally think of "silencing" after this incident?

A report released by Chainalysis in August this year indicated that as of the end of June 2026, there have been 46 recorded violent incidents targeting cryptocurrency holders globally, with 12 resulting in successful payments, and over $30 million in cryptocurrency assets known to have been violently seized. Home invasions accounted for 37% of these incidents this year, while kidnappings accounted for 52%.

Data on wrench attacks in the crypto industry

Source: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/violent-crypto-wrench-attacks-2026/

Although these statistics are not directly related to Hsin-Ju's death, the risk of offline violence in the crypto sector is a real part of the collective experience in this industry.

In traditional financial systems, an individual's wealth is typically separated by banks, custodians, freezing mechanisms, and clearing systems.

Crypto has removed many intermediaries, allowing money to cross half the globe in just ten seconds. As a result, online attacks that used to occur are gradually extending into the offline world.

This means that if I can't get your private key, I will find someone who has it.

Because there have been numerous similar cases in this industry, when elements like "public rights protection," "evidence announcement," "death that night," and "desert highway" appear simultaneously, the public automatically pieces them together into a complete story.

In fact, this story establishes a complete logic psychologically, but that does not mean it holds up in terms of evidence.

I even feel that Chen Jian's previous viewpoint—"don't easily escalate conflicts, don't make things irreparable, the world is about human relationships"—is more valuable than various claims of "100% being silenced," as it represents a typical risk perception in the crypto space.

In the crypto industry, when individuals and companies face serious conflicts of interest, many practitioners often do not think of labor laws, judicial procedures, or corporate governance first, but rather leave each other a way out.

Because everyone subconsciously knows that this industry has a lot of punitive mechanisms outside of formal systems.

These punitive mechanisms can include denying you the next round of financing, labeling and smearing you within the circle, or continuously draining you through relational costs. These actions may not necessarily be illegal, and some may even be impossible to prove, but they can still determine whether a person can continue to survive in this industry.

Thus, the phrase "the world is about human relationships" actually exposes the true security outlook of many people in the crypto industry, which is that when systems are not reliable enough, people begin to rely on personal relationships to control risks.

Rational Thinking

Let’s think rationally from the perspective of interests: Hack VC is not a fund that has reached the edge of a cliff and needs to do anything to survive; on the contrary, it was clearly still in a period of expansion at that time.

In 2024, Hack VC's AUM was approximately $425 million, and by the third quarter of 2025, it had grown to about $700 million, with committed capital of around $550 million by the end of the year. In 2025, it invested about $50 million, completing 29 investments, with 26 of the invested projects issuing tokens. The early investment in Rail was even acquired by Ripple for $200 million. After entering 2026, Hack VC continued to invest and lead new projects.

This means that it is a VC that is still fundraising, investing, expanding its team, and constantly interacting with LPs, project parties, and founders.

For such an organization, the most important asset is not the several hundred million dollars on the books, but rather its credibility.

Therefore, from a purely risk-reward perspective, taking any extreme or even illegal measures to handle a labor dispute with a former employee is actually an extremely unprofitable business. The only benefit of such actions is to silence a former employee and avoid some negative public opinion and reputational damage.

However, once the matter is exposed, what follows could be criminal investigations, lawsuits, LP inquiries, partner severance, obstacles in future fundraising, or even the destruction of the entire fund's brand and the careers of its management.

The former is at most a reputational crisis, while the latter could directly turn into a survival crisis.

Moreover, VC is different from many ordinary companies; it is inherently a business built on long-term credibility. Even if a labor dispute becomes very ugly, it can theoretically still be resolved through lawyers, compensation, arbitration, and public relations; but if it crosses the criminal red line, the nature of the situation completely changes.

So at least from the perspective of institutional rationality and economic interests, I find it hard to identify a reasonable motive for Hack VC to voluntarily assume such unlimited downside risks for a labor dispute. At least from an economic logic standpoint, it is not an easily justifiable explanation.

The Death of Hsin-Ju: A Crypto Tragedy

The crypto industry has always been a field of contradictions. Crypto publicly advocates decentralization, personal sovereignty, freedom to exit, and the idea that "Code is Law," but the off-chain world of Crypto is highly centralized, rather than the ideal utopia of a DAO.

A few funds control a large amount of early capital, a few conferences control industry exposure, a few trading platforms control liquidity access, and a network of core builders, VCs, and KOLs forms a relationship network that is not as large as imagined.

The technology is decentralized, but resource allocation remains very centralized. Hsin-Ju was precisely someone living on the chain.

Whether as a platform leader, growth leader, conference organizer, or connecting projects and capital, she was a node in this relationship network.

The crypto industry itself is a highly transnational field with rapid personnel movement and widespread remote collaboration. Many professional relationships do not rely entirely on a unified set of systems; industry credibility, connections, endorsements, and reputation often constitute another set of invisible rules.

Thus, a person who has worked for nine years, participated in Stellar, Solana, and Ethereum events, and ultimately became a Crypto VC Partner, publicly expressed her concerns about being blacklisted by the industry after a serious conflict with her organization.

In her final public post, she despairingly wrote that she knew the outcome of this matter could be very bad for her, even mentioning death. The two parties were originally in the process of legal mediation, but ultimately Hsin-Ju lost her life.

Although the cause of Hsin-Ju's death has not yet been determined, in an industry that constantly promotes personal sovereignty and permissionless access, how much genuine institutional protection has been left for an ordinary practitioner who refuses to remain silent and is prepared to publicly confront the situation?

When a practitioner and an institution completely sever ties, what everyone first worries about is whether they will pay a price outside of the system, rather than solving the problem through the system.

Thus, keeping things peaceful and not making things irreparable has become the default survival strategy for many crypto workers.

This reaction itself, I believe, has already exposed the enormous issues in governance within the crypto industry, and this incident has evidently become a health report for the off-chain ecosystem of the crypto industry.

The death of Hsin-Ju: A crypto tragedy.

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