Ocean Protocol’s Sudden Exit from ASI Alliance Triggers Legal Action

Fetch.ai CEO Humayun Sheikh has announced plans to personally fund a class action lawsuit following Ocean Protocol’s sudden withdrawal from the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI).

The Ocean Protocol decided to exit the decentralized AI coalition that once united Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol under a shared token vision.

Fetch.ai CEO Humayun Sheikh Plans Class Action After Ocean Protocol’s ASI Alliance Exit

In a post on X (Twitter), Sheikh urged affected FET holders to prepare evidence of financial losses linked to Ocean’s exit. He committed to funding a class action in three or possibly more jurisdictions, with a dedicated channel planned for users to submit claims.

The statement comes as the FET price dropped almost 10% in 24 hours, trading at $0.2954 on CoinGecko at the time of writing.

The sell-off has been ongoing, exacerbated by Ocean Protocol Foundation’s decision to withdraw all its directors and membership positions from the ASI Alliance.

The decision effectively ends its participation in the coalition formed earlier this year to build a unified AI and Web3 ecosystem.

Against this backdrop, Binance announced plans to cease support for deposits of Ocean Protocol via the Ethereum network starting October 20 at 03:00 UTC.

“After this time, any OCEAN deposits sent via ERC20 will not be credited to users’ accounts and may lead to asset loss,” Binance articulated.

BeInCrypto first reported on October 9 that the Ocean Protocol Foundation’s exit raised serious questions about the long-term alignment and trust among ASI’s founding members.

Diverging Visions and Community Backlash

While Ocean did not cite specific reasons for its withdrawal, community discussions point to internal rifts and diverging visions over the future of AI tokenization and data ownership.

Ocean officially joined the ASI Alliance in March 2024, with around 81% of its total OCEAN supply swapped for FET by July. However, roughly 270 million OCEAN tokens, held by more than 37,000 wallets, remained unconverted.

This suggested significant resistance from community members who preferred to retain the original token and governance model.

This resistance may have influenced Ocean’s decision to withdraw, as the foundation refocuses on its decentralized data infrastructure mission, rather than merging into the broader AGI-driven economy championed by Fetch.ai and SingularityNET.

Critics within the ASI community have accused Ocean of exploiting the alliance for visibility while contributing little to the unified ecosystem. Others described the move as a “Trojan horse” act that disrupted months of cooperative development.

Since the split, OCEAN’s price has plunged from a March 2024 peak above $1.00 to roughly $0.2625, while the foundation announced plans to buy back and burn OCEAN tokens using project profits. This measure is aimed at supporting long-term value.

The network also called upon exchanges to consider relisting OCEAN afresh.

“Any exchange that has de-listed $OCEAN may assess whether they would like to re-list the $OCEAN token. Acquirors can currently exchange for $OCEAN on Coinbase, Kraken, UpBit, Binance US, Uniswap and SushiSwap,” the protocol stated.

Meanwhile, Sheikh’s planned class action could mark a new chapter in legal and reputational uncertainty for the decentralized AI sector. It also discusses how alliances and token mergers should be governed.