Venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by
cryptocurrency exchange Gemini that alleged fraud related to its Earn program. In an Aug. 10 filing with the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, lawyers for DCG and its CEO, Barry Silbert, alleged Gemini’s lawsuit filed in July was a “continuation of [a] public relations campaign” targeting the firm on
Social Media with “personal, vicious, and false” claims. The filing echoed Gemini’s complaint, in which the crypto exchange said it sought to recover funds incurred as a result of “DCG’s and Silbert’s false, misleading, and incomplete representations and omissions to Gemini” and their role “in encouraging and facilitating Genesis’s fraud against Gemini.” Genesis, a DCG subsidiary, had been the crypto lender responsible for operating an Earn program launched in 2021 in partnership with Gemini. The program claimed Gemini users could loan crypto to Genesis with the promise the firm would repay it with interest. However, the firm halted withdrawals in November 2022, citing “unprecedented market turmoil,” and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2023. According to the DCG filing, Silbert and the firm “had virtually nothing to do with the Gemini Earn program,” and Gemini could largely not back up its claims of fraudulent activity: Related: Winklevoss twins’ Gemini launches Ethereum staking in the
UK The collapse of Three Arrows Capital in 2022 reportedly left Genesis with $1.2 billion of funds in limbo amid bankruptcy proceedings. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the co-founders of Gemini, have claimed that Genesis and DCG owed $900 million to the exchange’s clients. Both Gemini and Genesis are facing a civil suit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought in January over its Earn program. The regulator claims the program offered the sale of unregistered securities.
New York State’s Department of Financial Services is also reportedly investigating the exchange over similar allegations. Magazine: BlackRock bullish on
Bitcoin, Gemini CEO’s ‘delusion,’ and CEXs’ unhappy staff: Hodler’s Digest, July 2-8