HairDAO: A Cryptocurrency Involved in Illegal Human Experiments (Introductory Article)
Outright illegal and Unethical Human Experiments. Potenital SEC violations. Hidden Motivations and Intentions.
It is without a doubt that cryptocurrency (for better or for worse) is a rapidly developing landscape. For this reason, regulatory bodies are often lightyears behind on the happenings of the space.
In this series, we will be focusing on a specific project in this Crypto landscape: HairDAO.
But before we begin, what are DAOs? And while we’re at it, what is/who is (are?) HairDAO?
A Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO, is an organizational structure enabled by blockchain technology. Unlike traditional companies or organizations, a DAO (ostensibly) operates without centralized leadership.
Instead, it relies on smart contracts, which are self-executing code stored on the blockchain that dictate the organization’s rules and facilitate operations. Decision-making within a DAO is perceived to be democratized, with governance typically distributed among token holders (those who hold the cryptocurrency representative of stock in a company, in this case $HAIR coin) who vote on proposals to guide the DAO’s activities.
More specific to the case of HairDAO, co-founded by Andrew Verbinnen, the Chief Investment Officer of Foster Cove Capital (a cryptocurrency venture capital firm), and Andrew Bakst, the Chief Investment Officer of Bizantine Capital (another cryptocurrency venture capital firm), this DAO’s mission is to supposedly revolutionize the funding and development of hair loss research: a field it believes is severely underfunded by traditional means.
HairDAO operates on a platform that claims to decentralize the science behind hair loss research, intending to replace the National Institutes of Health (NIH) when it comes to funding research for alopecia; more specifically androgenetic alopecia.
It offers a seductive vision: faster, community-driven research that could potentially speed up the discovery of new treatments or cures.
However, the project is shadowed by illegal human experiments involving unapproved chemotherapy drugs sourced through dubious means from Chinese black-market pharmacies.
https://www.reddit.com/u/Synizs/s/y5X7iaccfq
These activities lack the necessary safety and ethical oversight, exposing participants to significant risks. Furthermore, HairDAO is also implicated on enticing individuals to purchase these chemicals (often times with impurities) from black market Chinese vendors.
“How so?” you might ask
To clarify the situation surrounding HairDAO, it’s essential to understand the roles and actions of its co-founders, Andrew Verbinnen and Andrew Bakst. Verbinnen serves as the Chief Investment Officer at Foster Cove Capital, and Bakst holds the same position at Bizantine Capital, both of which are cryptocurrency venture capital firms. Alongside a pseudo-anonymous internet researcher known as “Jumpman,” these co-founders have been implicated in dubious activities linked to HairDAO.
On platforms like Discord and Telegram, they reportedly offered incentives for participation in their clinical trials. These incentives included payments made in their cryptocurrency, $HAIR coin, as well as compensation for the costs of bloodwork.
This approach not only raises ethical concerns but also flouts legal standards, as it appears to sidestep the regulatory framework established for clinical trials by authorities such as the FDA. The involvement of financial incentives in clinical research, especially when managed without appropriate oversight and qualifications, poses serious risks and liabilities for all parties involved.
That is, those that participated in the unofficial, unapproved, unethical, illegal human clinical trial would be compensated by payment for their bloodwork details and for the bloodwork itself.
The purpose of this unethical and illegal human clinical trial was (as it seems) to source patient bio metric data in a pre-clinical trial (instead of using tissue samples, cells, or animals, they used humans instead) and send the details over to HairDAO’s “patient portal”.
This, in theory, would save the HairDAO project millions when it comes to research and development by merely cutting corners and ignoring regulatory bodies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States of America.
The Creation of Illegal Human Clinical Trials & SEC Violations abound: Jumpman and Dr. Claire Higgins
Recently, HairDAO found itself embroiled in a grave controversy. A prominent community researcher affiliated with the organization, known pseudonymously as “Jumpman,” facilitated an unauthorized human clinical trial.
In this trial, participants were induced to use phase 1 chemotherapy drugs and other unverified compounds, which Jumpman claimed could potentially regenerate hair on bald scalps. According to reports from within the group, these compounds were alarmingly experimental, having never undergone testing on cells or animals.
These drugs, unapproved and predominantly untested on humans, were procured through a “group buying” arrangement. This scheme involves large numbers of individuals pooling funds to purchase chemicals from JennysChems, a supplier based in China. The participants essentially paid to partake in what amounted to an unsanctioned clinical trial, devoid of any safety oversight or monitoring mechanisms. This risky venture not only endangered the health of the participants but also bypassed crucial ethical and regulatory safeguards.
Jumpman (also known as Pegasus or Pegasus2) often promotes these “group buys” on platforms like Reddit, HairLossTalk, and rapamycin.news .
Find more here:
1. Hair Loss Community Member using chemotherapy drugs to “regenerate” hair follicles. Dangerous and irresponsible. Bad science.
2. New Treatments and Huge Groupbuy with lots of Research
3. Archived — New Treatments and Huge Groupbuy with lots of Research
4. Biggest Group Buy in History — New and Old Compounds
5. Group Buy for Hair Loss, Gray Hair Reversal, and Anti-Aging
For the HairDAO organization, Jumpman oversaw and facilitated these illegal human clinical trials.
Moreover, attempts by HairDAO to associate with respected entities and individuals like Dr. Claire Higgins and the Bioengineering Lab at the Imperial College London have not withstood scrutiny.
Dr. Higgins is a lecturer in Bioengineering at Imperial College London, specializing in tissue development and regeneration using the hair follicle as a model. She completed her postdoctoral training at Columbia University, where she received a Career Development Award from the Dermatology Foundation. Her research focuses on the interaction between specialized cells in the hair follicle to understand organ regeneration and skin repair.
Dr. Higgins is especially relevant because she is currently running experiments on human hair follicle tissue samples in a contract with HairDAO.
Strangely enough, on the official X/Twitter account of HairDAO, the relationship between Jumpman and Dr. Higgns is stated in the following screenshot:
HairDAO on numerous occasions has published magazines on Issuu, where Jumpman and Higgins are stated to be in collaboration https://issuu.com/hairdao/docs/hair_cuts_5/14
Original Link:
https://x.com/HairDAO_/status/1769713155884662798?t=M0ZMhyRMcQW_qdC5Cnr0hQ&s=19
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/KVJgY
Emails with Dr. Higgins show that Jumpman isn’t working with her
However, this collaboration that HairDAO publicy states exists between Jumpman and Dr Higgins seems to be false and misleading. Here is a snippet of the email thread between my team and Dr. Higgins. This is relevant because her association with Jumpman, the person who led this illegal human clinical experiment, ties to her work that she is doing with HairDAO.
Here are some screenshots from Jumpman’s telegram group chat where much of this illegal clinical trial was conducted:
Here is a list of chemicals in Jumpman’s protocol that he is organizing people to consume and use. The more concerning aspect of this is the use of “spanisertib” (which is actually sapanisertib). This is an experimental inhibitor of mTOR and is only in phase 1 clinical research for cancer-based conditions.
You can learn more about sapanisertib by following the links below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5812400
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6348338/
http://adisinsight.springer.com/drugs/800030541
You can read more about Jumpman’s cure protocol here: https://www.docdroid.net/RbRg57e/cure-protocol-pdf
Returning back to a point that I made earlier in this article, both co-founders were aware of this illegal human clinical experiment and even attempted to provide compensation for those that participated in it; this compensation includes cryptocurrency payments and covering the costs of bloodwork. This practice is particularly troubling because it not only bypasses but directly violates FDA regulations governing clinical trials in the United States. Furthermore, HairDAO, headquartered in New York City, New York, is required to adhere to these regulations.
We can also reasonably argue that HairDAO committed an SEC violation by publicly misrepresenting Jumpman’s affiliation with Dr. Higgins. If Jumpman, the internet “researcher” who initiated an illegal human clinical trial, is indeed working with Dr. Higgins and has co-designed her current study with HairDAO, Dr. Higgins is welcome to publicly clarify what she meant in her email exchange with my team and me. Otherwise, this false or misleading claim could potentially constitute a violation of SEC regulations, designed to protect investors from fraudulent and deceptive practices in the securities markets. These issues collectively depict a scenario where HairDAO’s operations are not only ethically questionable but also legally precarious.
For other claims that were made outside of hopes to cure hair loss, Jumpman stated that an experimental drug known as “ABBV” had the means to cure autism and Alzheimer’s as seen in the screenshot below:
