What Can Be Verified About the Death of Hsin-Ju Chuang

This page collects everything I have been able to verify about the death of Hsin-Ju Chuang, a former partner at Hack VC. Please reach out (andrey@sergeenkov.com) if anything is unclear, if something else would help your work, or if you have corrections.

Found dead by I-15 on August 24

• The coroner’s public death register lists the manner of death as suicide (San Bernardino County Coroner death register, search “hsin-ju”, 2026). The medical cause of death has not been published.
• On August 24 at 9:47 p.m. local time, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) responded to southbound I-15 at the Field Road exit in Harvard, Newberry Springs. Hsin-Ju Chuang, 37, of North Las Vegas, was pronounced dead at the scene. San Bernardino County Coroner case number: 702605767 (Sheriff-Coroner press releases).
• She was found in a vehicle that officers had to enter by breaking a window (Pain in the Pass).
• The Field Road exit is on the main Los Angeles to Las Vegas route, where Caltrans counted an average of 45,000 vehicles a day in 2023 (Caltrans). The exit itself has no services (map).
• On September 24, CHP told me its investigation is ongoing and referred questions about the cause of death to the coroner. Press inquiries: CHP Inland Division, 801_PIO@chp.ca.gov. According to the coroner’s division, a final report that includes toxicology results takes six months to a year on average (County Coroner Division).
• The Barstow-Daggett weather station, 29 km (18 miles) from the scene, recorded a high of 108°F (42.2°C) that day and a low of 82°F (27.8°C) (station daily summary). At about 9:50 p.m. it was 95°F (35°C) (station hourly data).
• At 7:22 a.m. that day, the National Weather Service issued an Extreme Heat Warning for the area, in effect through August 28 (NWS Las Vegas warning).

Nine years in crypto, at Hack VC since 2021

• A U.S. citizen (her post from 09/30/2025), she joined Stellar in 2017 and became its head of growth. She later led growth at Solana, from the white paper stage until just before the testnet launch. She founded Dystopia Labs and ran 17 Ethereum conferences around the world. Before Hack VC she worked at Fhenix (her announcement from 03/10/2025). Her thread dates the Solana role to 2018 and the Fhenix role to 2024 (her Aug 23 thread). Dystopia Labs was founded in 2019 (Dystopia Labs).
• She had worked part-time with Hack VC since 2021 (her Aug 23 thread). On March 10, 2025, she became a partner and head of platform (her announcement). Alex Pack posted the same day that he was excited to have her join (Pack’s post).

Hack VC and the two people she later accused

• Hack VC Management, LLC has been registered with the SEC since August 3, 2022, and was formerly known as Sybil Capital Management. It reports $822.8 million in regulatory assets under management and 15 employees (IAPD; Form ADV).
• Alex Pack is the firm’s co-founder and principal owner, and previously co-founded Dragonfly.
• Daniel Bulaevsky is a partner, general counsel and chief operating officer of Hack VC. He previously worked as an attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, as a partner at Klaros Group, as a consultant at Promontory Financial Group and as an investment banker at JPMorgan (hack.vc/team).
• The firm runs the hack.summit conferences and gatherings with founders (Hack VC 2025 recap). She hosted the firm’s Seoul conference on September 22, 2025 (Luma).

September 2025: she says she was pushed to work while ill, then resigned after Seoul

• On August 28, 2025, she posted that she was looking forward to Seoul (post) and that she needed to take better care of her health (post).
• In her thread of August 23, 2026, she wrote that the previous year, around Korea Blockchain Week, she had documented Graves’ disease, hyperthyroidism and severe insomnia. She described working 13 or 14 hours a day, six days a week, and sleeping between zero and four hours a night (thread).
• She wrote that Pack and Bulaevsky threatened to blacklist her from the industry if she quit before hack.summit and the KBW events were over, and that this went on for almost a month. In her account, Pack told her he had known the managing partners of most VC firms for almost a decade and could absolutely blacklist her (her Aug 23 thread). She does not describe any specific list. My impression is that this most likely refers to a threat to use connections to shut her out of work in the industry.
• On September 17, 2025, she publicly announced that she had given her two weeks’ notice and would stay until the KBW events were over (post), and then take time off for health reasons (post). The next day she thanked Pack and Bulaevsky for hiring her (post).
• On September 22, 2025, she and partner Rodney Yesep hosted hack.summit in Seoul (Luma).

Fall 2025: recovery, a suicide attempt and posts on a “shift in worldview”

• On September 27, 2025, she posted that she was recovering on a ranch with friends and dogs and that her panic attacks were down to three or four a day (post with photos).
• In her 2026 thread she wrote that the working conditions led her to attempt suicide and that the anniversary was coming up as of August 2026 (her Aug 23 thread). She does not give a date. Her posts from that period suggest September 2025: she announced her resignation on September 17, hosted the Seoul conference on September 22 and posted about her recovery on September 27.
• Between September 30 and October 16, 2025, she published four long posts. In the first, she wrote that transparent systems and compliance tools can be used to threaten people and force obedience, and that she used to believe someone would step up to help in a bad situation (part 1). In the second, that people look away from injustice because of money and fear of retaliation (part 2). In the third, she called good people leaving in droves an early sign that a project is doomed (part 3). These posts name no companies or people.
• In October 2025 she wrote that she was taking the fourth quarter off to rest. On October 28 she replied to Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly that good investors understand the power imbalance, do not take advantage of it, and do not issue ultimatums (her reply).

Graves’ disease and hyperthyroidism, per the U.S. National Institutes of Health

• Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder in which the thyroid gland produces excess hormones. It is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism and is more common in women and in people older than 30 (NIDDK, NIH).
• Hyperthyroidism causes a rapid or irregular heartbeat, nervousness, trouble sleeping, sweating and trouble tolerating heat. Possible complications include arrhythmia and heart failure (NIDDK, NIH).
• Anxiety and depression are more common in patients with Graves’ disease than in patients with nodular goiter (Bové et al., 2014).
• In a study of 58 patients with Graves’ disease, every exacerbation and every relapse was preceded by a stressful event (Vita et al., 2015).
• The main treatment for Graves’ disease is medication. In a 2023 international survey, 91.5% of physicians started treatment with antithyroid drugs, 7% with radioactive iodine and 1.5% with surgery (Medscape). The main drug, methimazole, costs about $15 on average for 30 tablets of 5 mg without insurance (GoodRx).

November 2025 to August 2026: insurance, lawyers, nearly a year of talks

• She wrote that about a month after the suicide attempt, the firm mishandled her COBRA health insurance and did not fix it for almost four months, until she hired lawyers (her Aug 23 thread). Under U.S. Department of Labor rules, the COBRA election notice should be sent to a former employee within 44 days of the qualifying event (U.S. Department of Labor).
• Her lawyers were Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight. According to Sanford Heisler’s website, it often works on a contingency fee basis (Sanford Heisler FAQ). The terms of her engagement are unknown.
• In her account, the negotiations lasted almost a year and reached the stage of preparing for private mediation and settlement (her Aug 23 thread). No lawsuit appears in public databases (CourtListener and California court searches were checked). The firm’s SEC brochure states that the firm and its supervised persons have no reportable disciplinary events (Form ADV Part 2A, Item 9).
• The settlement her lawyers at Sanford Heisler were preparing would have required her to stay silent about what happened at Hack VC (her Aug 23 thread). To negotiate that condition, Sanford Heisler would have needed to know what she would be staying silent about, so it likely holds at least part of the material she planned to publish.
• Sanford Heisler cannot share it on its own. Attorney-client privilege survives a client’s death (Swidler & Berlin v. United States), and lawyers must keep client confidences under professional conduct rules (ABA Model Rule 1.6).
• Disclosure becomes possible in two ways. In both California and Nevada, where she lived, the privilege passes to the personal representative of her estate, who can consent to disclosure (California Evidence Code 953; NRS 49.105). Documents that existed before she gave them to her lawyers, such as messages from Hack VC, do not become privileged by being in Sanford Heisler’s files and can be obtained by subpoena or court order (Fisher v. United States).
• On September 23, 2026, Alex Pack wrote that the firm had not spoken to her directly in over 10 months, that is, since about November 2025 (Pack’s post).
• In 2026, before the thread, she barely posted on X.

August 23 and 24, 2026: the thread, the firm’s response, her last post

• On August 23 at 17:00 UTC she published the thread. She rejected the settlement because it required her silence and wrote that she had fired her lawyers the day before. She described the illness, the threats, the suicide attempt and the insurance problems. She promised to publish evidence on August 26 and posted wallet addresses for support. She tagged @0xRodney, @IsTheBaron, @roshunpatel and @Alex__Botte while writing that, in her words, the firm continued to lie and try to harm her through its lawyers and other employees and partners (thread).
• On August 24 at 01:27 UTC, Hack VC posted a statement: the firm was deeply concerned for her well-being, its understanding of events differed materially, and it would not discuss details out of respect for her privacy. The firm later deleted the post (Internet Archive copy).
• At 08:47 UTC she replied that, in her view, the reason was different: the firm did not want to commit to a version of events that her written evidence would contradict (post).
• At 18:10 UTC she published her last post (post). About 10.5 hours later, CHP responded to the call at which she was found.

The exchange with @jurad0x looks like a random reaction from a stranger

• On August 24, an X user under the handle @jurad0x, whose profile listed Delphi Digital as a previous employer and described him as a security specialist, insulted her and wrote that she had been well paid and could simply have left. She replied to him three times (first reply). He later deleted his posts (Internet Archive copy) and deleted his account on September 23 (post by @johanusonn).
• Before that day, the two had never interacted on X. The checked portion of his archived posts going back to 2020 does not mention her or Hack VC. After the exchange he posted about his usual topics. Based on everything found, this was a reaction from someone in the same industry to her thread, with no other connection between them.

No funds have left her wallets since August 24

• No funds have moved out of her addresses since August 24. This covers the addresses from her thread (ETH, SOL) and her ENS addresses dystopialabs.eth and hsinju.eth on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, BSC and Solana.
• On August 23, about five hours after the thread, an unknown person launched a “Justice For Hsin-Ju” token on pump.fun and assigned 100% of the token’s creator fees to her SOL address, with no ability to change the recipient (token). On August 24, when people urged her to claim the fees, she wrote that she wanted people to believe her first (post).
• As of September 24, the vault holding these fees contains 44.26 SOL. Nothing has ever been withdrawn from it (vault).
• Conclusion: the blockchain shows no sign that anyone gained access to her funds after her death or took the money raised in her name.

Hack VC says it deleted its statement because of hostility toward her

• On September 23, Pack offered condolences and wrote that the firm was not aware of the circumstances of her death. Replies to the post are limited (Pack’s post; Protos).
• The firm told Protos and CoinDesk that it removed its August 24 statement after seeing the tone the public conversation was taking, because some responses directed toward her had become increasingly hostile (Protos, CoinDesk).
• The firm’s statement currently shows 9 replies and 4 quotes, none of them hostile toward her (replies to the post, X login required). I do not know how to check whether any replies were deleted. There were hostile posts toward her in the discussion that day, for example from @jurad0x.

Press coverage so far

• First reports of the death: Pain in the Pass (September 5) and Hoodline (September 6).
• News of her death spread in the crypto community on September 23 after a post by @0xjordy.
• English-language outlets: CoinDesk, Protos, Cointelegraph, Cryptopolitan, Cryptonews, The Crypto Times, The Cryptonomist, TokenPost.
• Chinese-language outlets: PANews, BlockBeats, Odaily, WuBlockchain, BlockTempo, cnyes.
• Her August thread with the allegations was covered by Foresight News and KuCoin News.

Updates

• September 24, 2026: Added the coroner’s determination of the manner of death. The earlier version said the cause of death had not been determined; the coroner’s register had listed the manner of death since at least September 23.
• September 24, 2026: Added CHP’s response confirming that its investigation is ongoing, traffic data for the Field Road exit, and an explanation of the circumstances under which Hsin-Ju Chuang’s former lawyers could disclose information about her case. Corrected the distance to the Barstow-Daggett weather station from 20 km (12 miles) to 29 km (18 miles).

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In other countries, Find A Helpline lists free, confidential helplines in over 150 countries. If someone is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.