The claim
“The ETH sent into the HEX launch lobbies was simply taken by the founder.”
A recurring claim; no single original source is attributed here.
What the code shows
Lobby ETH was exchanged for that day’s HEX by a published formula (HEX.sol:2697-2789); each participant collects the HEX by calling xfLobbyExit, which has no deadline. The ETH was forwarded to the hard-coded FLUSH_ADDR by xfLobbyFlush(), a function anyone could call (:635-636, :2794-2800). The contract never contained a refund. Read the verified source.
What exactly is claimed?
During the HEX launch year, people sent ETH into daily “Adoption Amplifier” lobbies. The claim is that this ETH was simply pocketed — that participants paid and the founder walked away with the money. Its factual core is right: the ETH did not stay in the contract, and it was not returned. The question is whether that was hidden or different from what was published.
What does the lobby code do?
| Step | What happens | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Enter | Anyone sends ETH to xfLobbyEnter on a lobby day (day 0 to day 350) |
HEX.sol:2697-2716 |
| Pool | That day’s pool is the still-unclaimed Bitcoin converted to HEX, divided by 350; day 0 had a fixed 1 billion HEX seed | :2877-2894, :659-661 |
| Exit | From the next day each participant can collect HEX in proportion to the ETH sent, by calling xfLobbyExit — there is no deadline |
:2723-2789, formula :2752 |
| Flush | xfLobbyFlush() — callable by anyone — sends the contract’s whole ETH balance to the hard-coded FLUSH_ADDR 0xDEC9f2793e3c17cd26eeFb21C4762fA5128E0399 |
:635-636, :2794-2800 |
Every participant who calls xfLobbyExit receives HEX by the published formula; a participant who never calls it has not collected yet, and still can. The destination of the ETH was a constant in the verified source from the first day, and the contract never contained a refund function.
What happened to the ETH after the flush?
The outgoing transactions of FLUSH_ADDR are public on the Ethereum explorer, like those of any address. What the code and the chain cannot show is who controls that address and for what purpose the ETH was used. This portal has not analysed those transactions.
What did the SEC allege, and what happened to the case?
The SEC’s complaint, filed 2023-07-31 (case 1:23-cv-05749, E.D.N.Y.), described the window 2019-12-03 → 2020-11-19 as the “Hex Offer Period” and alleged that at least 2,371,362 ETH had been deposited from 21,156 addresses; the court restated these figures as the SEC’s allegations (ECF 57, p. 5). Its separate misappropriation allegation — $12.1 million between 2021-08-03 and 2022-09-22 — concerned PulseChain sacrifice funds, not the HEX lobby code.
| Date | Step | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-31 | Complaint filed | SEC Lit. Rel. 25794 |
| 2025-02-28 | Dismissed in full: no personal jurisdiction, and independently no domestic transactions or offers | ECF 57 |
| 2025-04-21 | SEC declines to file an amended complaint | ECF 60 |
| 2025-05-06 | Judgment entered for the defendants; case closed | ECF 61 |
The dismissal did not decide whether HEX is a security and made no finding on whether the alleged misuse of sacrifice funds happened; the facts in ECF 57 are allegations assumed true for the motion only. Accurate wording: dismissed in full, judgment for the defendants — not “found innocent”. Full record: Legal timeline.
Verdict
Not supported by the code. The lobbies worked as their public code says — ETH was exchanged for HEX and forwarded to an address fixed in the contract; there was no hidden path. Whether the later use of that ETH was legitimate is a legal question the code cannot answer, and no court has made a finding on it: the one case that raised related allegations ended in judgment for the defendants. How the launch worked in full: HEX launch.