Written by: Nicky, Foresight News
On September 23, according to hoodline and local police reports, former Hack VC partner and 37-year-old North Las Vegas resident Hsin-Ju Chuang was found dead on the evening of August 24 near the Fields Road exit of Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert in California. The California Highway Patrol (CHP) responded to the scene after receiving a report at 21:48 that night. The case is still being investigated by the Barstow office, and the specific cause of death has not yet been released. The autopsy and toxicology reports from the San Bernardino County Coroner's Office are still in the process of being issued.
On the day of the incident, the area experienced extreme heat, with daytime highs of about 108 degrees Fahrenheit (about 42 degrees Celsius), while nighttime temperatures remained above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Whether this high-temperature environment is related to the incident remains undetermined at this time.
It is worth noting that Hsin-Ju was precisely the central figure in the Hack VC workplace controversy that had attracted significant attention in the crypto industry. In the early hours of August 24, she publicly stated on the X platform that she refused the settlement offer proposed by the company and planned to disclose relevant evidence she had collected during her employment, accusing the company of high-intensity work arrangements, disregard for employees' health rights, and improper handling of insurance after departure. The timing of this public airing of the workplace dispute highly coincided with the time she was found dead, further drawing widespread attention from the industry and public opinion to the entire incident.
Foresight News previously published an article on August 24: "Hack VC Caught in Employee Exploitation Controversy, Has the '996 Culture' Spread to the Crypto World?" The original content is as follows:
In the early hours of August 24, former Hack VC partner and platform lead Hsin-Ju Chuang posted on the X platform, announcing that she refused the company's settlement offer and decided to publicly release on August 26 all the evidence she had collected during her tenure at Hack VC.
Hack VC subsequently gave a brief response, saying it was aware of the relevant posts and was deeply concerned about Hsin-Ju's health, but that the two sides had major differences in their understanding of the incident, and that for privacy reasons it would not publicly discuss the details for the time being.
Hsin-Ju's public accusations focused on her working conditions during employment and the handling of insurance after her departure. According to her account, last year, due to medical emergencies, including diagnosed Graves' disease, hyperthyroidism, and severe insomnia, she was still required to continue high-intensity work, working 13 to 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, often getting less than 4 hours of sleep.
Based on the above reasons, Hsin-Ju said she repeatedly submitted resignations but was refused, and was threatened that if she left before the completion of Korea Blockchain Week (KBW)-related activities, she would be blacklisted in the industry. According to her tweets, she stated that after this state persisted for nearly a month, she attempted suicide. Afterward, she once stated in writing to Hack VC that she had no intention of suing and only asked not to be retaliated against or defamed. However, she claimed that just one month after her suicide attempt, the company delayed the handling of her COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) health insurance, and the problem persisted for nearly four months, only being resolved after she hired a lawyer to intervene.
It was precisely during this legal negotiation process that the settlement offer was proposed, but she ultimately chose to give it up. Hsin-Ju stated that she was unwilling to exchange money for signing a confidentiality clause, because that would mean trading silence for money. According to her, she fired her attorney the day before, deciding that she did not want money and still wanted to speak out. This choice is logically unusual. In most disputes, parties will seek maximum benefit with the assistance of a lawyer rather than voluntarily give it up, but her explanation was that after nearly a year of negotiation, she realized she could not accept the outcome of "taking the money and shutting up."
In response to Hack VC's statement that it would not publicly discuss details on privacy grounds, Hsin-Ju further posted that she believed the real reason was not privacy, but that Hack VC was unwilling to make a fixed early characterization of the incident, lest the written evidence she later disclosed contradict it.
Public information shows that Hsin-Ju entered the crypto field in 2017, successively serving as head of growth at Stellar and an early Solana team, after which she founded Dystopia Labs, focusing on developer ecosystem building and Web3 event organization. In 2024, she joined Fhenix as head of growth, and in March 2025 officially became a partner and platform lead at Hack VC. She emphasized that during her time at Hack VC she received a salary increase to $300,000, a bonus, and a promise of carried interest, and that she did not initiate the lawsuit for financial motives, but chose to speak out because she suffered substantial harm.
Hack VC holds a certain position in the crypto venture capital field. The institution is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and regulatory filings show that its assets under management are approximately $823 million. Its portfolio covers well-known Web3 projects such as Sui, EigenLayer, Berachain, Morpho, and Stable, and it has achieved exits in acquisitions such as Rail and Vertex. According to Preqin database and LinkedIn official homepage data, its fixed core staff and investment team number about 15 people, with the overall registered/associated employee count in the 11-50 range.
The other key figures in the incident are Hack VC co-founder and managing partner Alexander Pack and partner, general counsel, and chief operating officer Daniel Bulaevsky. Alexander Pack previously co-founded Dragonfly Capital and served as its first managing partner, and also oversaw Web3 investments at Bain Capital Ventures, accumulating deep connections and influence in the industry.
Daniel Bulaevsky's professional background is equally strong. He previously served as a lawyer at the leading New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, participating in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and securities law matters, and afterward worked in leveraged finance at JPMorgan Chase. After joining Hack VC, he was responsible for legal, financial, and overall operations. The core positions of the two within the institution make Hsin-Ju's accusations point directly to the governance responsibility of Hack VC's decision-making level.
Hsin-Ju explicitly mentioned the two in her post, saying that she had been told that Alexander Pack had known the managing partners of most VC institutions for nearly a decade and had the ability to impose an industry blockade on her. For a practitioner who has worked in the crypto field for nine years and has long relied on connections and reputation to obtain opportunities, potential pressure from two industry seniors would undoubtedly intensify the uncertainty of her situation. Daniel Bulaevsky, as general counsel, also had his handling of labor disputes and insurance issues included in Hsin-Ju's accusations.
If the evidence Hsin-Ju discloses can support her accusations, Hack VC may face legal risks on multiple levels.
Under California's legal framework, an employer's duty to provide reasonable accommodation to employees is relatively strict. Refusing to adjust work intensity after becoming aware of the situation, preventing an employee from leaving for medical reasons, or making retaliatory threats may constitute discrimination, failure to engage in the interactive process, or retaliation. The nearly four-month delay in handling COBRA insurance may also violate federal notice and administration obligations. In addition, if the relevant threats caused severe mental harm, it may also involve tort liability such as intentional infliction of emotional distress. However, the final determination of these risks depends on the strength of the evidence, her legal status as an employee, and the specific communication records. At present, the two sides differ greatly on the facts.
At the community level, some practitioners have publicly expressed support for Hsin-Ju. Hummingbot co-founder Michael Feng said that he had worked with Hsin-Ju many times to organize conferences, believed that she had always been diligent, ethical, and responsible, and said that if the evidence showed that leadership did not put employee health above business, all LPs should redeem. There are also voices in the Chinese-language community arguing that despite the extreme workload and health damage, the compensation of about $300,000 in annual salary plus bonus could still attract people to accept similar conditions. This view reflects from another angle the "high pay for high pressure" culture commonly found in the crypto industry.Hsin-Ju's choice to make the evidence public on August 26 means the matter will move from a personal narrative to a stage that can be externally verified. She said she realized that facing an institution managing hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, the outcome could be extremely unfavorable to an individual, but she was still unwilling to trade silence for a settlement.
For Hack VC, regardless of the legal outcome, this public dispute has already begun to affect its reputation in the industry. For crypto practitioners more broadly, this incident offers an opportunity to re-examine workplace governance, the boundaries of power, and individual protection.