Believe founder Ben Pasternak accused of secretly dumping KLED tokens

Ben Pasternak, the Australian wunderkind who attempted to revive the concept of “internet capital markets” with his memecoin launchpad Believe has been accused of secretly dumping tokens tied to AI data firm Kled.

Kled, which claims to pay users for their personal data, which is collected through data labelling tasks that can include uploading pictures and essays.

Once in possession of this data, it then hands it over to larger AI companies so that it can be used to improve datasets and help train AI software.

Pasternak had allegedly agreed with Kled CEO Avi Pastel that he wouldn’t sell his tokens on the open market and, if liquidity was ever needed, he was open to “OTC sales or burning supply.”

However, Pastel claimed on Tuesday that one day after Kled released its mobile app on September 24, Pasternak “OTC’d” the majority of his tokens to an undisclosed third party which then began selling them.

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Pastel claims that, as a result of the sale, “We were forced into damage control, scrambling to coordinate OTC solutions to prevent further market harm.”

Pasternak claimed that the token sale was due to “taxes.” However, Pastel claims, “To this day, we do not know what this means,” and says Pasternak still hasn’t disclosed who the third party was.

Pasternak allegedly kept breaking promises

Afterwards, Pasternak allegedly agree to then reneged on OTC pricing promises on four occasions, “while also lying about when he began selling.”

As a result, the Kled team was “forced” to OTC his position at a $27 million valuation, reducing his holdings from “around 6% to roughly 3.5%.”

Pasternak then allegedly claimed that he wouldn’t offload the remainder of the tokens — until a week ago, when he apparently began selling again.

“Once again, our whales had to scramble to organize OTC buys, reducing his position to roughly 1.7%,” Pastel said, adding, “Even then, he continued selling into the chart.”

He described Pasternak’s behavior as “unacceptable,” and claimed, “No builder should ever work with him again if that was not already clear.”

Pasternak scrubs LinkedIn

Pasternak hasn’t responded to the allegations made on X, and hasn’t been active on the platform since October 20.

Last month, he announced an AI startup on LinkedIn, but now he appears to have scrubbed the LinkedIn account of all of its posts.

Believe provided a service where users could create a token on the back of an idea by simply tagging the app’s LaunchCoin account.

As part of its terms, Pastel says Pasternak was given a portion of token allocations that were created on the platform. However, Kled split from Believe in July and now retains all of its fees.

Protos has reached out to Believe for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.