Metaplex is facing legal scrutiny from Burwick Law over its transfer of more than 54K unclaimed SOL.
Holders have until April 25, 2025, to reclaim funds.
The U.S.-based law firm Burwick Law has publicly challenged the Solana NFT platform Metaplex over its upcoming plan to transfer unclaimed SOL tokens, worth approximately $7.3 million, into its DAO treasury. The issue revolves around the resize rent, originally paid by users as part of a blockchain optimization introduced last year. In a strongly worded open letter posted on X on April 22, the firm warned that the decision could pave the way for legal action.
The Backstory
Last year, Metaplex rolled out a system-wide improvement that shrank the on-chain footprint of its NFTs. As part of this technical adjustment, holders of Metaplex Token Metadata (TM) NFTs were eligible to reclaim a few of the SOL used as rent for on-chain storage. Notably, the reclaim window closes on April 25, 2025. So far, around 7,043 SOL have been claimed. Metaplex intends to transfer the remaining 54,000 SOL—roughly $7.3 million at current prices—into its DAO treasury. It intends to fund community-driven projects like grants, airdrops, and governance initiatives.
Concerns of Burwick
Burwick Law argues that many NFT holders were never clearly notified that their unused funds might be swept into a treasury they don’t control. Their concerns fall into the fact that the rent fees were originally paid with the expectation that they served a functional, not financial, purpose. Redirecting those funds now creates what Burwick calls a retroactive fee grab. It follows that the principle of the code is law only holds if the rules are immutable and transparent. If protocols can change prior agreements unilaterally, the foundation of decentralization weakens.
In addition, permitting such broad actions would open the door to similar choices by other DAOs. It might erode trust in user-held assets. Rather than pursuing litigation, Burwick has shared a potential resolution that balances user interests with DAO needs. Their proposal includes pausing the token sweep to allow more time for NFT holders to claim their SOL, refunding remaining rent directly to current NFT holders through an on-chain upgrade, and retaining a 10% network-maintenance bounty for the DAO. They also contend that the 90/10 split model would prove that the Solana ecosystem is capable of regulating itself and safeguarding users, without needing a courtroom intervention.
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