In Brief:
- Vulcan Forged (official site) CEO Jamie Thomson said he will step back from running the company and restructure it, weeks after Binance placed a monitoring tag on the PYR token.
- Thomson said Vulcan Forged has run monthly losses ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for more than two years, with the business still spending more than it earns.
- The move follows years of pressure that included a 2021 breach the company valued at more than $100 million and a reimbursement of affected users from its treasury.
Vulcan Forged CEO Jamie Thomson said Wednesday he is stepping back from day-to-day leadership and will restructure the company, in a message to the community posted after Binance flagged its PYR token as higher risk.
Thomson framed the decision as a choice between burning through more capital and hoping the market recovers, or restructuring for a chance at a sustainable business. “We’ve chosen the third option,” he said, without detailing what that option is in the portion of the message he made public.
Binance added a monitoring tag to PYR on July 3, grouping it with AEUR, SCRT and VANRY. PYR fell about 11% the same day as traders weighed the risk of a delisting. The tag flags assets the exchange judges to carry elevated risk, keeps them tradeable, and can require users to pass a risk quiz every 90 days.
A token in freefall
Thomson said the tag has weighed heavily on the token. “Ever since the monitoring tag was placed on us, the token has been in freefall,” he said, adding that he understands why buyers are wary of a token facing that much uncertainty.
He said he muted and then deleted his personal X account over the past week because of abuse. “Over the past week I’ve had to mute, and eventually delete, my personal X account because of the amount of abuse I was receiving,” he said. He said he understands the frustration, and also understands Binance’s position, noting that PYR’s market capitalization and trading activity “carried significant weight” in the exchange’s decision.
The timing stung. Thomson said Vulcan X launched only days before the tag landed, and that the ecosystem had, for the first time in years, been taking in more PYR than it was giving out. He described that as a model the company believes is sustainable, judged during one of the weakest stretches the GameFi market has seen.
Years of losses
Thomson said Vulcan Forged has operated at a monthly loss for more than two years, ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and has downsized where it could. The business still spends significantly more than it earns, he said.
He also described carrying much of the operation himself. “I’ve personally been designing games, fixing bugs, managing development, uploading websites, handling community management, making strategic decisions, dealing with exchanges, and trying to keep every part of the company moving forward,” he said. That was workable during the growth years, he said, but not indefinitely for one person.
He tied the decision to his family. “The truth is, I’ve also reached the point where I need to be a husband and a father again,” he said. “For seven years I’ve poured everything I had into Vulcan Forged because I genuinely believed in what we were building. But I can’t continue sacrificing my family while trying to carry an entire company on my own.”
Background
Vulcan Forged’s hardest hit came from a security breach that drained its treasury. Thomson put the loss at more than $100 million; reports at the time valued the roughly 4.5 million PYR and other assets stolen from user wallets in December 2021 at about $140 million. The company reimbursed affected users from its treasury and moved to a decentralized wallet setup afterward.
Thomson said he expects skeptics to write off the announcement. “I know there will be people outside the community who dismiss this as another failed crypto project,” he said. “Those who have actually been with us for years know differently.”
