Published a post to accuse his former employer, only to be found dead in the desert the same night, the mystery behind the death of the former Hack VC partner

On August 24 this year, the body of a 37-year-old woman was found near the off-ramp of Fields Road southbound on Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert, California, USA. California police later confirmed that the deceased was Hsin-Ju Chuang, former partner of Hack VC.

Shockingly, on the very same day, she just published a long article pointing directly at Alexander Pack, co-founder of Hack VC, and Dmitry Bulaevsky, partner of Hack VC. Hsin-Ju Chuang stated that when she was going through a health crisis, the two men threatened her with an "industry blacklist order" to force her to keep working and not resign, which made her so distressed that she once attempted suicide. She also claimed that Hack VC later retaliated against her through health insurance means and spread rumors to smear her.

A homicide case that occurred on a desert highway has brought to light an employment dispute scandal between a well-known venture capital firm with assets under management of nearly 700 million US dollars and its former partner. As of press time, the investigating authority has not yet reached a clear conclusion on the cause of Hsin-Ju Chuang's death.

Once a star partner in the industry, now found dead on a desert highway

Many people may not be familiar with Hsin-Ju Chuang's professional identity as "former partner of Hack VC", but her resume in the crypto circle before is quite impressive, and it is no exaggeration to call her a "star partner in the industry".

About Hsin-Ju Chuang: 9 years of experience in the crypto industry, worked on star projects such as Stellar and Solana, and organized 17 Ethereum conference events

According to the long article published by Hsin-Ju Chuang herself when she joined Hack VC as a partner in May 2025, as early as 2017, she joined Stellar by coincidence as the head of growth — this project was co-founded by Jed McCaleb, the founder of Mt. Gox, and Brit, the co-founder of Lightyear, focusing on cross-border payment, asset tokenization, DeFi and real-world financial applications.

In 2018, at the early startup stage of the Solana team, through the introduction of Chris McCann, partner of Race Capital, she got acquainted with toly and raj, co-founders of Solana, and joined this star project as the head of growth. At that time, the Solana team had less than 10 people, the project was even at the whitepaper stage, and had just received investment from 500Global VC. Eventually, Hsin-Ju Chuang stayed until the eve of the launch of Solana testnet, and left before the incentives were unlocked.

After that, she worked briefly at Tezos, and later founded her own startup project Dystopia Labs, focusing on developer ecosystem construction and event organization; in addition, in 2024, she participated in the construction of Fhenix, a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) infrastructure project, and has organized a total of 17 Ethereum ecology-related conferences around the world since 2019.

But no one expected that this new appointment statement, which "recounted the past journey and opened a new chapter in the future", started a cruel and dark "working life".

Joining Hack VC became the beginning of a nightmare: worked part-time since 2021, worked full-time for 7 months, and was threatened by the firm's partners with an "industry blacklist order"

After joining Hack VC full-time, Hsin-Ju Chuang started her conscientious "working life", but the reality soon told her that it was not an easy task. Compared with the glamorous title of "crypto VC partner" seen by the outside world, Hsin-Ju Chuang's real work content looks suffocating.

According to the statement of Hsin-Ju Chuang in the explosive long article, during the KBW conference last year, although she was facing serious health problems, Alexander Pack, co-founder of Hack VC, and Dmitry Bulaevsky, partner of Hack VC, still asked her to promote the activities related to the hack summit and the side venues of the KBW conference, and threatened her with "if you dare to resign, we will issue an industry blacklist order".

At that time, she worked 13-14 hours a day, 6 days a week, and slept at most 4 hours every night; in addition, she was diagnosed with diffuse toxic goiter, hyperthyroidism and severe insomnia. The seemingly high-paying crypto VC partner was actually a "miserable worker" who burned her life and health to advance work.

Subsequently, Hsin-Ju Chuang repeatedly asked to resign, but Hack VC refused many times, and the threats and intimidation against her lasted for nearly a month as events such as KBW progressed. In the later stage of the events, her personal health condition once deteriorated; under the torture of illness, Hsin-Ju Chuang even attempted suicide.

Worse still, even after the failed suicide attempt, and she informed the person in charge of Hack VC in written documents later that she "had no intention of suing and only wanted to resign" (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: Her original words roughly mean "As long as Hack VC will not take retaliation or smear actions afterwards, I have no intention of suing."), the matter obviously could not end so easily.

As a well-known VC with assets under management of nearly 700 million US dollars, the people of Hack VC are clearly not good-natured people. Of course, they are not stupid enough to retaliate openly or publicly announce the blacklist. Only one month after Hsin-Ju Chuang's failed suicide attempt, Hack VC showed its vindictive attitude by perfunctorily handling the COBRA health insurance issue. (Note from Odaily Planet Daily: This insurance allows American employees to continue to use the original employer group insurance plan when they lose the group health insurance provided by their employer due to resignation, reduced working hours or other specific reasons, but usually they need to pay the full premium by themselves.)

Under the prevarication of Hack VC, the insurance issue has not been resolved after nearly 4 months. Hsin-Ju Chuang had no choice but to hire a lawyer to force them to comply with the law and fix the COBRA insurance problem. However, during the legal negotiation, tempted by huge potential benefits such as carried interest bonus and clawback provisions, Hack VC still slandered her through rumors from lawyers and other employees/partners.

It is worth mentioning that Hsin-Ju Chuang's working treatment at Hack VC was not bad. Since 2021, she has worked part-time at Hack VC, achieved a salary increase from 50,000 US dollars to 300,000 US dollars, received a 30,000 US dollar bonus and an additional promise of carried interest bonus (originally planned to be realized about a week after her resignation). In addition, she was promised the possibility of joining the GP management team, but no definite news was finally given due to her health problems.

Reading through the explosive long article, Hsin-Ju Chuang's despair is almost palpable. Perhaps this is why nearly a year after the suicide incident, when the lawyers of both sides were originally preparing to enter the stage of private mediation and settlement, she finally chose to reject the settlement with a confidentiality clause, dismissed her lawyer and planned to release evidence related to the case on (or before) August 26. When she published the explosive long article on August 24, she even attached two wallet addresses for donation and help.

Unfortunately, the last update time of this explosive long article stayed at 1 a.m. on August 24. And that night, she lost her life on the desert highway in California, USA, and passed away unfortunately.

The cause of Hsin-Ju Chuang's death is a mystery:

The autopsy result is not out, suicide to prove her innocence or contract murder?

On September 6, the news website hoodline published an article titled "A 37-year-old woman from Las Vegas was found dead on an interstate highway". The deceased in this incident was exactly Hsin-Ju Chuang, former partner of Hack VC, who was originally planning to present evidence.

The case is currently under investigation by the Barstow station of the California Highway Patrol. According to the meteorological data reviewed by the media, on the day Hsin-Ju Chuang's body was found, the temperature in the Mojave Desert was as high as about 42 degrees Celsius, and the nighttime temperature also remained at about 27 degrees Celsius. It is still unclear whether high temperature, sudden illness, mechanical failure or other reasons led to her death.

In addition, although several weeks have passed, there is still no specific news about the autopsy result. The San Bernardino County Coroner's Department stated that death investigations requiring toxicology and histology tests take an average of six months to one year to complete.

Regarding the accident scene, according to the California Highway Patrol, the Barstow station of the California Highway Patrol is responsible for patrolling Interstate 15, which covers a 130-mile section from Apple Valley to the Nevada state line, making it the second largest patrol area in California. This area is vast and sparsely populated, and cases occurring in remote areas along the route usually take a period of time to be known to the public.

Based on the existing information, there is no evidence to show whether this case is a suicide or a homicide crime. However, the coincidental time node, the strange desert highway, coupled with the previous "workplace scandal" incident of Hack VC, still cast a mysterious and bloody color over this case.

It is worth mentioning that as one of the well-known VC institutions in the industry, the investment projects under Hack VC include many industry star projects, such as EigenLayer, Goldfinch, Mysten Labs (Sui), io.net, Elixir, Berachain, Stable and so on.

This bizarre incident of "former partner being found dead on a desert highway in a remote area before presenting public evidence" undoubtedly added countless doubts and scrutiny to this VC institution. As for how Alexander Pack, co-founder of Hack VC, and Dmitry Bulaevsky, partner of Hack VC, who have been pushed to the forefront of the storm, will respond afterwards, and whether they will be investigated by the police after responding, we do not know for the time being.

As of press time, the official of Hack VC has not given a positive response to this incident, and Odaily Planet Daily will continue to track the latest progress of the incident.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Odaily" (ID: o-daily), author: Wenser, editor: Qin Xiaofeng, published with authorization from 36Kr.