The legal battle includes metaplex, a Solana NFT platform. This announcement follows the company’s recent announcement regarding its plans to transfer approximately 54,000 SOL from these user-funded wallets into its DAO treasury. The move, meant to take place on April 25 2025, will include, as Metaplex has called it, unclaimed resize rent. Burwick Law, a New York-based firm, is dedicated to protecting the rights of cryptocurrency investors. They’ve expressed their concerns about the legality and ethical implications of this move.
Unclaimed SOL is currently over $7 million and rising. This figure is composed of users who paid into the system to resize their NFTs but never redeemed their funds. Metaplex has a plan to move its previously unused funds into the DAO treasury. Burwick Law makes the case that this action can be viewed as unjust enrichment or illegal fee collection without prior authorization.
Burwick Law suggests the situation is analogous to cases where banks were compelled to reimburse overdraft fees due to inadequate disclosure. The firm argues that users may not have been fully aware that these funds would be forfeited if not actively reclaimed.
Rent was paid so NFTs could live on-chain, not to bankroll a future windfall. - Burwick
In order to avoid further legal developments Burwick Law has pressured Metaplex and Solana developers to act quickly to rectify the situation. The firm’s legal and policy experts advise the Treasury to stop the intended transfer and instead update its program to directly refund current NFT holders. Any unspent tokens after the refund period would then be swept into the DAO treasury.
Burwick Law has quickly become the premier firm representing crypto investors in cases of mismanaged tokens and transparency breaches. More recently, they took on the team behind the LIBRA token in a class action lawsuit. The deceptive practices and insider trading that is alleged to have occurred during the token’s launch forms the basis of the lawsuit. Their entry represents a deep-pocketed and extremely sophisticated challenger to Metaplex.
As of the time of writing, Metaplex has not addressed Burwick Law’s open letter publicly. In addition, they have failed to respond to serious concerns raised about moving unclaimed SOL. The situation is still developing, and the centralized crypto community will be watching to see how Metaplex reacts and moves forward.
