OpenVPP's Fake SEC Endorsement: A Breakdown of the Obvious Lie

You have to admire the sheer, unadulterated gall.

Seriously. In a world drowning in corporate PR-speak and carefully manicured brand identities, the team at OpenVPP just went for it. They saw an opportunity, grabbed it with both hands, and tried to run a marketing play so brazen, so transparently dishonest, that it almost loops back around to being performance art.

They posted a picture. A simple photo of their CEO, Parth Capadia, standing next to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce. The kind of grip-and-grin photo-op that happens a thousand times a day in Washington. But it was the caption that was the real masterpiece of deception.

“Excited to announce that we are working alongside Commissioner @HesterPeirce Pierce and the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission on the Tokenization of Energy.”

Working alongside.

Let that phrase sink in. It’s so beautifully vague, so purposefully misleading. It paints a picture of collaboration, of a deep partnership with the very regulatory body that holds the power of life and death over projects like theirs. It’s the kind of statement designed to make a gullible investor’s eyes go wide, imagining a project so legit, so government-blessed, that it’s a guaranteed moonshot.

It was, offcourse, a complete lie.

The Smackdown We All Needed

Hester Peirce, bless her heart, wasn’t having any of it. For those who don't follow the tedious drama of crypto regulation, Peirce is known as "Crypto Mom" for a reason. She’s generally been one of the few voices at the SEC arguing for a lighter touch, for fostering innovation instead of strangling it with enforcement actions. She’s the one person in that entire building you’d think a crypto project would want to keep on their good side.

So when she publicly replied to their post, the digital slap was heard across the industry.

“I welcome the chance to meet with crypto projects to hear from them about their regulatory challenges, but I do not ‘work alongside’ or endorse private crypto projects or firms.”

It was a polite, professional, and utterly devastating takedown. It was the regulatory equivalent of "I don't know her." And what did the bold innovators at OpenVPP do in response to this public correction from a sitting SEC Commissioner? They hid her reply on X.

Yes, you read that right. They tried to digitally erase the truth, like a petulant child covering their ears. This is a bad move. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of a PR strategy. It screams guilt. It tells the world, "Yes, we were lying, and we are not mature enough to even admit we were corrected."

This whole charade happened during the SEC’s “Crypto on the Road” tour, an initiative Peirce herself is leading. The stated goal is to hear from small startups, the ones with ten or fewer employees who don’t have lobbying budgets or fancy D.C. law firms on retainer. It’s supposed to be a dialogue. A chance for the little guys to be heard. And OpenVPP saw this good-faith effort not as a chance to engage, but as a backdrop for a cheap marketing stunt, an episode that led to headlines like Crypto Task Force Tour Continues as Hester Peirce Denies Endorsing OpenVPP. It’s like being invited to a town hall and using the microphone to shill your personal brand of essential oils. It’s just... pathetic.

A Sickness in the System

Look, it’s easy to dunk on OpenVPP. They made it incredibly easy. But this isn’t just about one cringey project. This is a symptom of a much deeper sickness that has plagued the crypto space since day one.

The entire industry is built on a foundation of hype. The technology is complex, the use cases are often theoretical, and so the only way to get a tention—and investment—is to scream louder than the next guy. This creates a perverse incentive to fake it till you make it. Announce a partnership that’s really just a one-off conversation. Hint at a government collaboration that doesn’t exist. Use weasel words like “working alongside” to create an illusion of legitimacy where there is none.

These projects are like pilot fish desperately trying to cling to a shark. They think that by associating themselves with a massive, powerful entity—be it a bank, a tech giant, or in this case, the SEC—some of that power and legitimacy will rub off on them. They aren't adding value; they're just trying to ride the wake. The problem is, the shark doesn't even know they're there, and couldn't care less if it accidentally swallows them whole.

It’s exhausting. Every time you think the industry might be maturing, that we might be moving past the era of cartoonish scams, something like this happens and yanks you right back to reality. Then again, maybe I’m the crazy one for expecting anything different. Maybe this is just what a completely unregulated, hyper-capitalist market looks like.

But it leaves me with some nagging questions. How many other projects are pulling this exact same stunt, just with a little more subtlety? Is the SEC’s entire “let’s talk” approach fundamentally flawed if it just gives grifters a new stage to perform on? And if the supposed "good guys" in the space are this brazen, what in the hell are the actual bad guys up to?

Just Another Tuesday in Crypto

At the end of the day, the OpenVPP saga isn't a shocking exposé. It's a confirmation of what most of us already knew. For a huge swath of the crypto world, this was never about building a new financial system or empowering the unbanked. It was, and always has been, about getting rich quick. It's about pumping a token, cashing out, and leaving a trail of broke "investors" in your wake. This incident was just a rare moment where someone pulled back the curtain and we all got to see the sad, little man pulling the levers. Don't be surprised. This ain't changing anytime soon.