DeFiLlama’s founder 0xngmi has accused Blockworks of reselling DeFiLlama’s free data

DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi publicly accused a data analytics platform of reselling DeFiLlama’s free data on a paid service priced at $4,500 per year, leading to immediate and wide community reaction.

The accusation was made on the same day a co-founder of the accused platform published a long announcement stating that they will shut down their news division and fully transition into a software and data organization.

The co-founder posted a statement explaining the company’s direction. He said that when he and his partner founded the company in 2017, they wanted to address what he called “the information problem,” during a period when crypto was expanding quickly and lacked reliable industry reporting.

He wrote that they built events, podcasts, research products, data dashboards, and eventually a newsroom. He said the company had record revenues in 2025 and expected another record year in 2026, pointing to especially fast growth in its data division.

The co-founder wrote that both investors and crypto protocols rely on their data daily, and that he and his partner view the data business as the company’s strongest opportunity since its founding.

The CEO then confirmed that they will exit news, saying that crypto media has matured and users now look primarily to data dashboards rather than traditional articles.

He thanked the reporters on the news team and invited other organizations to hire them, then mentioned that they will continue to run newsletters, podcasts, and events, and that their conference will take place next year in Abu Dhabi.

DeFiLlama challenges the platform over paid data dashboards

Shortly after the announcement, 0xngmi quoted the post and said:

“Becoming a data first org is cool I guess, but you guys could start by not reselling our free data for $4.5k/yr against our Terms of Services, even after telling us you had removed all our data when we asked. Screenshot from paid platform, 1 min ago.”

The attached screenshot displayed a chart that appeared to be generated from DeFiLlama’s data within a paywalled dashboard. Check it out below:-

Then the head of data at the accused platform replied under the tweet, saying:

“The charts you showed don’t show any data as we deprecated use of dl data in the platform months ago following your change in ToS – as we discussed over DMs. This is an edge case where the dashboard builder shows all charts ever created, regardless if they exist/the data is updated. Thanks for not just dming it, bonus points for a splashy tweet.”

0xngmi responded by calling him a liar, and adding that the ‘application revenue by chain’ chart shown in his screenshot worked and returned DeFiLlama data.

The head of data then replied, “Yeah, not updated since July, like my last DM said. No reason to not have followed up there like ‘Hey, there must be a bug’.”

0xngmi pointed out that:-

“The chart I mentioned had data from this month (October 2025).”

After that, the head of data stopped replying. Engagement under the thread shows 0xngmi’s replies receiving more likes, a pattern commonly recognized as being ratioed, meaning the community is on DeFiLlama’s side on this one.

The conversation continued circulating widely, with users sharing screenshots and commentary about Terms of Service compliance and platform transparency.

Community responds to the platform laying off its newsroom

At the same time, the decision to remove the news staff drew its own backlash.

Many in the community are angry that the statement began by highlighting record revenue, and only after several paragraphs mentioned that the journalists who contributed to the platform’s visibility would be departing.

Critics said the tone framed layoffs as an afterthought.

Martyna MBL, Senior Director at Serotonin, commented that:

“Ok this is pretty tone-deaf way to communicate a major layoff especially while leading with ‘record revenue’ and ‘massive growth’ It’s not just optics but also respect. When you announce redundancies as a footnote to a victory lap it gives people impression on how much you value the team that helped built your credibility in the first place. Really hoping the reporters affected get snapped up fast – they’re some of the best in the business honestly.”

Other users echoed this sentiment, arguing that the newsroom helped build the brand’s recognition inside the industry during market cycles when clear reporting was necessary.

Some also pointed out that the timing of the data resale allegation amplified the reaction, since the company was positioning itself as a trusted data provider on the same day it was accused of misusing another project’s data.