Casper Association CTO Michael Steuer answered zero of four direct questions about the on-chain vote-rigging findings, dismissed the investigation as 'AI mumbo-jumbo,' pointed to Swiss counsel at PsT Legal & Consulting in Zug, and exited the Telegram request-for-comment thread. Halborn's only reply was a one-line joke. RexIntel publishes the full verbatim exchange and discloses the reporter's identity.
Zero of four questions answered. The CTO of the Casper Association exited the request-for-comment thread.Rex Intel Services · Investigations Desk
On 2026-05-16, RexIntel published a 50,000-word on-chain investigation of the Casper Hackathon 2026 voting contract: 96% of the voter pool traced back to fifteen apex wallets, the announced 3rd-place winner had documented in its own GitHub README the wallet that funded the largest single bot-voter cluster in the contest, and the Casper Association's own treasury wallet directly seeded both voters and project shells.
On 2026-05-20, four days later, the reporter opened two parallel Telegram request-for-comment threads. One was addressed to Michael Steuer, CTO of the Casper Association and CTO of MAKE Group (the entity operating CSPR.fans). The other was addressed to Shweta of Halborn Security, RexIntel's Halborn audit point of contact since February 2025. The same four-question request was sent in both threads.
Steuer responded twice, declined to address any of the four questions, dismissed the investigation as "AI mumbo-jumbo," pointed to Swiss legal counsel, and left the group. Halborn's only on-record reply, with three other named Halborn employees in the thread, was a one-line joke from a fourth employee. This article publishes the exchange in full.
The request for comment
Identical text, sent to both threads at 13:24 UTC on 2026-05-20. Reproduced verbatim, with the signature removed (RexIntel publishes anonymously by default; the signature is the operator's, and is disclosed separately below):
Hey Shweta and Michael — looping you both in because the story has now been published, and I want to give the relevant parties a fair opportunity to provide comment, correction, or context for an update.
The issue concerns documented voting-integrity concerns around the Casper Hackathon 2026, including apparent coordinated/artificial voting activity connected to the CSPR.fans voting process and its impact on finalist/winner outcomes.
To be clear, I am requesting comment and preservation of relevant records. I am not asking anyone to pay for coverage, removal, or silence. Any dispute-resolution or damages discussion would be handled separately and formally.
Please let me know:
- Who is the correct person to receive the full evidence packet;
- Whether Halborn/sponsors had any role in reviewing, approving, auditing, or promoting the voting system or integrity claims;
- Whether relevant records are being preserved, including voting logs, wallet metadata, admin communications, finalist/winner records, sponsor communications, and internal discussions about voting irregularities;
- Whether you would like to provide a statement for inclusion in an update.
I would prefer this be resolved constructively through review, audit, correction, and transparency.
Telegram screenshot of RexIntel's request-for-comment message to Shweta (Halborn) and Michael Steuer (Casper Association), reproducing the four-question request and records-preservation ask in full.
Michael Steuer's response, in full
Steuer's first reply, verbatim:
We do not generally comment on the constant barrage of AI generated traffic and content that gets published on a daily basis. I would however recommend that you use a more capable reasoning model the next time you try and generate something like this, because alongside a complete disregard for facts, your AI mumbo-jumbo fails to reason what in God's green earth could possibly be the motivation behind such an elaborate multi-month conspiracy to accomplish what? Move a tiny amount of funds from our wallets to, according to your AI agent, other wallets we control? Why do we need a hackathon for that?
In any case, since you are framing this in legaleze as well, you can reach out to our legal representatives at PsT for any follow up: https://pst-legalconsulting.ch/
Telegram screenshot of Michael Steuer's first response, dismissing the investigation as 'AI mumbo-jumbo' and pointing to Swiss legal counsel PsT, plus the inline preview card for PsT Legal & Consulting in Zug.
PsT Legal & Consulting is a law firm registered in Zug, Switzerland. Per its own marketing copy: "Owner-managed law firm in Zug. International advice on commercial law, tax law and new technologies such as FinTech and Blockchain." That is the entirety of the forward-looking response on file from the Casper Association.
A Swiss shield over a Los Angeles operation
The PsT-in-Zug referral implicitly frames this as a Swiss matter. The public record says it is not. Per MAKE Group LLC's own marketing site at makegroup.io, the company that operates CSPR.fans, cspr.live, the Casper Wallet, and the CSPR.cloud indexer is based in Los Angeles, California. The "30 N. Gould Street, Suite R, Sheridan, WY 82801" address on MAKE's own contact page is a mass registered-agent service address in Wyoming — shared with hundreds of other LLCs and not the real seat of operations (documented in detail in the anchor exposé). Michael Steuer's own LinkedIn places him in the Los Angeles area; MAKE's own team page lists the leadership operating out of the same.
Casper Hackathon 2026 was a contest run by a California-based operation, soliciting submissions from globally distributed builders — including US residents — and announcing winners through US-hosted infrastructure (DoraHacks, GitHub, Casper mainnet RPCs whose corporate parent is the same Los Angeles company). The natural venue for any dispute involving a Los Angeles operation that affected US-resident participants is US/California jurisdiction. Referring a US-based reporter to Swiss counsel does not change the operational seat of the entities under examination — it raises the cost of correspondence for the claimant. That is the function the referral performs.
RexIntel notes the referral, has logged the receipts, and will continue to direct future correspondence to the publicly-documented operational addresses of MAKE Group LLC and the Casper Association in addition to PsT.
What Steuer did not do:
- He did not address any of the four numbered questions.
- He did not deny any specific on-chain finding from the original exposé.
- He did not respond to the records-preservation request.
- He did not name a recipient for the evidence packet.
- He did not disclose Halborn's, NodeOps', ChainGPT's, or NOWNodes' audit role.
- He argued against a motive the exposé does not allege. The original investigation does not claim Casper Association orchestrated the contest to launder funds between wallets it controls. The thesis is that the contest's marketing claim of "Sybil resistance and full transparency" is structurally false on-chain — the voter pool was built specifically to vote and dispersed afterward, the top projects' votes came overwhelmingly from operator-controlled funder clusters, and the Casper Association's own wallet directly funded 34 voters and 4 of 7 winning project shells. The on-chain receipts are reproducible from cspr.cloud and cspr.live with a free API key. Steuer responded to a claim RexIntel did not make.
The follow-up exchange
RexIntel replied to Steuer in the same thread:
Brother you are so far out of the loop of what's going on right now you really should have spoken with all the stake holders & asked for my evidence packet to know what I know & who is involved & what your team members have told me on & off video, & what they know before making any comment like this. Casue now we gotta do it all in discovery & it's going to get more expensive for you.
You don't understand how much pull I have in the crypto industry as I've built my reputation off trust & friendship you have built your empire off of bots & lies we are not the same
Steuer's second and final reply, verbatim:
We get it, you're a very important AI agent. Good for you. We built an "empire of bots" in order to move $10K from one wallet to another over the course of 3 months. You did it, you got us! Next, we're going to launch an army of bots to change the thermostat by one degree! Be sure to report on it!
Per Telegram's group-event log, Michael Steuer left the group immediately after sending that message. The CTO of the Casper Association exited the request-for-comment thread without acknowledging the preservation request, without naming a point of contact, and without responding to the questions.
Telegram screenshot of Steuer's second reply ('We get it, you're a very important AI agent... we built an empire of bots... change the thermostat by one degree') followed by 'Michael Steuer left the group.'
RexIntel does not editorialize Steuer's tone. The words are his, reproduced verbatim, in order. Readers can draw their own conclusion about whether "You did it, you got us" is an admission, a sarcastic dismissal, or something else. The newsworthy facts are narrower and harder: he was asked four direct questions about an investigation that turns on on-chain evidence; he answered zero of them; he pointed to outside counsel; he left.
Read full story at: https://www.rexintelservices.com/intel/we-built-an-empire-of-bots-casper-association-cto-michael-steuer-s-response-to-r-dde61a9976d63554
