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Cedar holders,
I want to update the community on an important step regarding the ongoing governance situation.
Shawnte has repeatedly claimed that a lawyer advised her that the actions she has taken regarding moderator salaries and staffing were legally permissible. Because those claims are being used publicly to justify decisions that have had serious consequences for the project, I have now contacted both of Cedar’s legal firms asking them to confirm whether this advice actually originated from either of them.
At this stage I have not named either firm publicly, as they should first be given the opportunity to clarify the situation directly.
However, the community is now calling in large numbers for the legal advice being referenced to be formally confirmed, properly attributed to the firm that provided it, and, if such advice does exist, made public and independently reviewed by external counsel.
To understand why this matters, it is important to restate what the community actually voted for.
On 14 August 2025, Cedar holders approved a governance proposal on Nation.io with 99.86% support. That proposal did not approve a general moderation “budget”.
It explicitly:
• Named five specific moderators
• Defined their roles
• Defined the exact compensation they would receive
• Stated clearly that anyone not named would receive their final payment on 22 August 2025
In other words, the vote authorised specific people, for specific roles, at specific compensation levels.
Since that vote:
• Three moderators named in the vote have been removed without any vote.
• Multiple unpaid moderators have also been removed.
• Shawnte, who was not named in the vote, inserted herself into the paid structure.
• The salaries of two named moderators were increased.
• Shawnte assigned herself the highest individual salary Cedar has ever paid, far exceeding any amount approved in the vote.
These actions were taken without a community vote.
The justification being presented publicly is that these changes are allowed so long as the total moderation budget remains roughly the same.
That argument does not withstand scrutiny.
The vote authorised payments to specific named individuals, not a discretionary pool of funds. Redirecting funds from individuals approved in the vote to someone explicitly excluded from remuneration under that vote directly contradicts the proposal.
Changing recipients, increasing compensation levels and directing funds to a member of the interim committee is not an administrative adjustment. It is a fundamental alteration of the governance decision the community approved.
In governance and legal terms this raises serious issues including:
• acting outside the authority granted by the vote
• diverting funds allocated for specific purposes
• self-dealing by a committee member financially benefiting from their own decision
• potential breach of fiduciary duties owed to the community
The issue is not whether the total amount spent remained similar.
The vote authorised who could be paid and how much.
Several shifting explanations have also been used to justify refusing to run a new community vote. Each time one claim has been disproven, a new narrative has appeared publicly.
The latest claim is that a vote cannot be run because I hold tokens originally allocated to the founder.
The history here is straightforward.
At launch in September 2021, tokens were privately allocated to the founder and his founding team. These allocations were made before Cedar operated under any DAO structure and were not subject to restrictions.
A significant portion of those tokens was distributed by the founder to members of the founding team. The remaining founder allocation was then privately assigned to me in September 2022, which was entirely within his rights.
Over the following years I used a substantial amount of those tokens at my discretion to reward contributors and team members. These bonus distributions were transparent and stopped when I left the project.
Separately, when Cedar relaunched and the interim committee was created, a significant treasury allocation was provided to that committee specifically so that, with community approval, it could be used in part for contributor bonuses. This was stated on the website.
The tokens I hold privately are not part of that treasury.
They were privately distributed founder tokens originating from the September 2021 launch allocation, and therefore do not fall under the governance of a partially formed DAO structure years later in 2026.
Importantly:
• The tokens I hold privately - after all contributor bonus distributions - have never been used by me to vote.
• The only wallet I have ever used for governance votes was a separate wallet used for my personal bonus distribution, not the wallet holding the larger token balance.
• Even if they had been used, the amounts involved have never been large enough to influence the outcome of any Cedar vote.
The premise being used to block a new vote is therefore not only illogical, it is ultimately an excuse to prevent community governance.
Meanwhile moderation across our channels has collapsed, the community has fractured and the project has suffered enormous damage.
Over the past ten months alone Cedar has lost approximately $39 million in token value, almost $4 million in LP, while hundreds of thousands of dollars of treasury funds have been spent with little tangible progress.
Because legal advice is being cited to justify actions that directly contradict a clear governance vote, the community is now asking for transparency.
There are only two possibilities:
A lawyer genuinely advised that these actions were permissible, in which case that advice should now be confirmed and independently reviewed.
No such advice exists and a law firm’s authority is being invoked inaccurately to justify actions that contradict the community’s vote.
I have therefore formally asked both legal firms associated with the project to clarify whether any such advice was given.
The community deserves a clear answer so that this issue can be resolved and proper governance restored.
We Are Cedar.
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