An investigation by Silent Solutions Limited, an IT security company founded by Oliver Scholl, uncovered unattributed use of of Sentinel's open source code by a separate dVPN project, Cosmic Network.
Their full article on the subject ("Exposing Cosmic Network for Code Theft and Unethical Practices") is available to read on X.
"[Cosmic Network have stolen, or at the very least copied, most (if not all) of the codebase from Sentinel and are presenting it as their own. Why do we say "stolen"? Because they have not attributed or credited the original developers as required under the open source license that governs the code.
Their theft is so blatant that they didn’t even bother to change the naming conventions for their nodes. Cosmic’s dVPN appears to be a 1:1 copy of an old version of Sentinel’s product."
As most followers of Sentinel will be aware, this project is open source; therefore, its source code is freely available to audit and fork on GitHub. Why does attribution matter then, strictly speaking?
Take the Apache 2.0 license used for the Sentinel Hub code repository as an example. The license in question, while open source, does contain stipulations related to acknowledgements. In addition, it is not permissible to republish open source assets as closed ones.
However, contributors to Sentinel are not thinking of this in a purely legal or commercial light: Open source principles have been integral to the project in spirit and practice for its entire existence. The existing licenses are anything but restrictive.
Statements from Sentinel
💬 Sentinel
"Note on Cosmic Network forking Sentinel's dVPN protocol and not giving public credit or acknowledgement to the Sentinel Ecosystem:
The goal of this post is to not demean Cosmic Network, but instead to highlight the potential of adoption of Sentinel's open source technology, as well as to emphasize the importance of giving credit and public recognition for forking an open source protocol which is under a free license.
Cosmic Network's dVPN architecture was forked from Sentinel's official GitHub repository and has been marketing it as their own development.
The Sentinel dVPN protocol has been worked on for years and is an advanced architecture that works at the consensus level. The design and implementation of this protocol was done by contributors who have won some of the most prestigious Cosmos hackathon-style competitions, against some of the smartest teams and validator organizations in the space.
Sentinel's main cross-platform dVPN application frontend and backend architecture is very secure and efficient, with thousands of man hours going into development and refinement from multiple contributors.
Significant parts of the frontend and backend could be made closed source without anyone even complaining, as most dApps in the Web3 ecosystem do. However, everything in the Sentinel dVPN protocol and flagship applications are open source and easily forkable. Blufrens are not playing games, privacy has to spread like wildfire. This is not some coin, this is a revolution.
The Sentinel dVPN protocol is meant to be built on. That is why there are three SDKs [development kits] written in different languages to build on the dVPN protocol. Everyone is invited to build their own dVPN application. Sentinel is fully open source and shares insight into all backend functionality—even though it is extremely proprietary with no comparisons.
dVPN applications built on Sentinel have been used by over six hundred thousand users, with over fifty thousand active users per month. Independent dVPN built on Sentinel alone has gained over 200,000 users and has a 4.6 star rating on the Google Play Store.
The Sentinel Ecosystem aims to support dVPN entrepreneurs, and provides resources and technical support to several dVPN apps run by different teams all over the world.
The Cosmic core team could have approached the Sentinel Ecosystem and tried to create a mutually beneficial structure with the community and potentially align incentives for $DVPN holders through governance."
💬 Alexandr Litreev
(Sentinel Contributor; NORSE Labs CEO)
Note: Code from SOLAR Labs (older incarnation of NORSE) also alleged to be included.
"We have discovered that Cosmic Network is using our source code in their project without adhering to the mandatory attribution requirements of the MIT license. At Sentinel, we hold no respect for those who disregard the ethics of open source collaboration. This kind of behavior undermines the trust that drives the open source community and discourages others from contributing, pushing them toward proprietary alternatives.
We believe in sharing our work to strengthen the community, but open source is not a gateway for free outsourcing without credit—it’s built on mutual respect. Our commitment to privacy, transparency, and open source principles remains unwavering. We will take action against any dishonest actors to ensure they either respect the core values of open-source or face the consequences. Mutual respect is not optional—it’s essential."
💬 Anonymous Technical Contributor
"Cosmic Network has allegedly taken Sentinel’s entire codebase—originally developed three years ago—performed a simple find-and-replace of token names, and launched a nearly identical chain, apps, and supporting infrastructure without proper attribution or adherence to open source licensing terms.
Sentinel’s technical analysis indicates that Cosmic Network’s infrastructure, hosted almost entirely on two centralized cloud providers, fails to deliver authentic decentralized functionality. Critical blockchain interactions appear to be faked, with the entire system reportedly running on a low-cost virtual private server (VPS). Despite these serious technical shortcomings, Cosmic Network has managed to secure a listing on MEXC and approvals from Apple and Google for its mobile applications, raising concerns about due diligence processes among industry stakeholders.
Additionally, Cosmic Network’s developers have purportedly neglected to remove Sentinel’s original address prefix, “sent…,” from their cloned code, resulting in nodes on the Cosmic chain also using the same prefix. The absence of a legitimate GitHub repository or meaningful source code management challenges Cosmic Network’s claims of being “open source.” Sentinel views these actions as a clear violation of open source principles and damaging to the collaborative efforts that drive decentralized innovation."
Desired Outcomes
Sentinel made it repeatedly clear in the statement that the purpose of shining a light on Cosmic Network's alleged impropriety was to defend open source principles, not attack the other project or their community.
- The team (and dVPN News) wish to make the Cosmic Network community aware of these findings—investors in that project face a very tangible threat of being scammed.
- Sentinel is attempting to encourage Cosmic Network to "do right" in the future, through proper acknowledgment, approaching the Sentinel Foundation for mutually beneficial agreements, and other applicable means.
Conclusion
Sentinel's dVPN ecosystem is not one solitary application, it is a network of many which grows further every month. Not only is it possible for anybody to develop a Sentinel-powered application, but existing VPNs and dVPNs are also able to plug into the network, and can even maintain their own native digital assets after doing so.
There's no need to copy, lift, or borrow anything from an open source, distributed protocol (at least without following the license). If you want to fork Sentinel's code, develop a dVPN application, or otherwise integrate with the Sentinel Network, everything you need can be found at Sentinel Docs and the project's GitHub repository.
To get in touch with the Sentinel Foundation or Growth DAO, we recommend reaching out on Telegram or X.
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