In a series of undercover films revealed Friday, attorney Kyle Roche bragged of his strong relationships with blockchain creator Avalanche and said he had launched spurious litigation to harm his rivals.
The native token of Avalanche, AVAX, dropped by around 11 percent when the claims surfaced, however, it has subsequently recovered to some extent. In terms of market cap, AVAX ranks 16th.
Slander and legal tactics
On Monday, Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer released a statement in which he called the story that accompanied the recordings a “defamatory swipe” and said that Roche had lied about its work for Ava Labs, the firm behind Avalanche, to “impress a prospective business partner.”
Separately, Roche said that the organization responsible for the tapes had “deliberately planned to poison me and then use me, using leading questions.”
According to Roche, the individual in the recordings “asked a meeting with me on the false pretence of a venture capital investment in a technological business, but his genuine goals are now clear: to fool and trap me.”
The recordings were uploaded on a website called Crypto Leaks, whose stated mission is to expose fraud and market manipulation in the cryptocurrency sector. The Ava Labs report is the third in a series that has accused crypto research company Arkham Intelligence and the New York Times of conspiring to undermine Internet Computer’s image via false allegations of manipulation of ICP, Internet Computer’s blockchain governance token.
Roche and other analysts have speculated that Crypto Leaks is funded by Dfinity, the corporation behind Internet Computer.
Roche added in his statement, “I now know that Christen Ager-Hanssen, who taped these conversations without my authorization, works for Dominic Williams, the designer of ICP Token, and the defendant in a high-profile securities fraud. lawsuit my company brought against him.”
However, covert recordings have gained interest in the business world since they show meetings taking place in an office and a restaurant. Roche flaunts her relationship with Ava Labs COO Kevin Sekniqi and her possession of 1% of AVAX (Avalanche’s native token) in return for legal services. (Sirer later dismissed this as “blatantly false”).
In one of the recordings, he says to an off-the-field interlocutor, “Because I litigate half the firms in this sector, I know where the market is heading.” I’ve “been there, done that” with every crypto firm.
Crypto secrets
The Crypto Leaks allegation goes much further, claiming that Roche steals trade secrets from its rivals for Ava Labs by using the discovery process in U.S. litigation and by using class action lawsuits to bring regulators’ attention to its competitors. Roche filed a class action complaint on behalf of those who purchased SOL tokens from Solana, claiming that the tokens are unregistered securities.
Until otherwise demonstrated, Crypto Leaks argues that you should presume Ava Labs instructed Roche on what industrial secrets to steal.
Both Roche and Sirer have disputed claims that they will use litigation as a weapon against rivals in return for AVAX tokens.
Sirer replies
As Gün Sirer notes in his reply statement, Roche has only dealt with a handful of “small” legal disputes regarding Avalanche. “Our company uses over a dozen legal firms, including his”, he stated.
He also emphasized that he did not engage in or condone any of the covert techniques shown in the article or videos.
“We believe in what we are building and do not need secret pacts or behind-the-scenes intrigue.”
Gün Sirer, CEO OF AVA LABS
“We believe in what we are building and do not need secret pacts or behind-the-scenes intrigue.”
The CEO of Ava Labs has rebuffed recent charges that his business engaged in a covert disinformation campaign against rivals of Avalanche, the company’s $5 billion layer 1 blockchain, calling them “categorically incorrect.”
“These accusations clearly started when Kyle Roche, a lawyer at a firm we engaged in the early days of our company, sought to impress a possible business partner by making false statements about the nature of his work for Ava Labs,” Gün Sirer said in a statement released on Monday.
Avalanche, according to Gün Sirer, does not entrust Roche with its legal matters and has not instructed him to initiate any litigation against other projects, such as the class action case filed in July against Solana Labs, the group behind the multi-billion dollar Solana Blockchain.
“we discovered about Solana’s lawsuit only via the news, and were upset that it was suing another initiative and sought to urge it to abandon the action,” Gün Sirer stated.
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