By James Davis
On Thursday afternoon, MasterCard’s NFT lead, Savtik Sethi, announced his departure from the global payments processor in a long Twitter thread. Sethi cites emotional distress and harassment as the major causes of his exit.
In the thread, Sethi revealed that the emotional distress resulted from a string of miscommunications, mismanaged processes, and internal inefficiency. He also said they were months when he would not get his salary until he begged for it across the hierarchy.
Sethi explained that when he told the firm’s human resource manager about the problems he encountered, he was advised to serve a three-month resignation notice before exiting MasterCard. However, Sethi claims that was just the firm’s way of preventing him from leaving.
Sethi Level More Accusations Against MasterCard
Sethi goes on to accuse the payment processor of denying him access to his account. He shared a photo of what looked like his login screen. Sethi says the move by MasterCard to lock his account has prevented him from accessing ideas he had spent several months designing.
Sethi believes that despite MasterCard discrediting him and downplaying his contributions, the fact remains that all the firm’s partners and clients associate MasterCard NFTs with him. In addition, he says that all questions related to Web3 were regularly directed to him.
In 2022, MasterCard took numerous steps into the blockchain industry. The firm recently announced that it would soon build its Artist Accelerator on Polygon. According to MasterCard, the Artist Accelerator’s goal is to offer creators and musicians the tools they need to expand into Web3.
Where to Mint the Resignation Letter
Sethi announced that he would sell his resignation letter as Ethereum NFT, dubbed New Beginnings. The letter has been minted 26 times at the time of publishing, according to the Manifold website (Manifold.xyz), where the mint is ongoing.
The letter is being minted for 0.021 ETH. According to Sethi, it is a piece of his personal story from the day he joined MasterCard. He was hired in late 2020. He began as an analyst in MasterCard’s global bill payment product department and later moved to the UK to become the firm’s NFT lead.