An August 26 report in Crypto Leaks, dubbed “whistleblower“, set the cryptocurrency industry on fire as it accused Avalanche of being involved in conspiracy theories against Solana and other competitors.
According to the publication the level 1 blockchain developer, Avalanche, the Ava Labs, allocated approximately 1% of the total amount of AVAX coins and Ava Labs stock to the law firm, Roche Freedman, as payment for filing lawsuits and class actions against some of its competitors.
Two major lawsuits
Roche Freedman is a law firm known for its work in the cryptocurrency space. It recently sued Binance.US over the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and also filed a lawsuit against Solana Labs, claiming that SOL is an illegal security.
The video in question
Among the allegations published in the Crypto Leaks report, there are several videos that appear to show Roche Freedman founder Kyle Roche stating that Roche Freedman was paid to attack its competitors, including Dfinity and Solana.
In the videos, the person identified as Roche appears to claim that he reached a deal with Ava Labs in September 2019 and was the first recipient of Ava Labs stock since Andreessen Horowitz:
“We made an agreement for me to provide legal services in exchange for a percentage of the total amount of coins… This was in September 2019”, he appears to say in the video.
In addition, this individual claims in the video that he received “about one unit” in coins and shares, presumably referring to one percentage point (1%).
He then describes the litigation as “a little-used tool,” to which the undercover agent in the video responds: “You are using [contention] as a strategic tool to support Ava Labs?” and Roche replied, “That’s correct.”
Roche (or whoever Roche claims to be) goes on in the video to say that he has inside knowledge of how the cryptocurrency space works:
“Because I sue half the companies in this space, I know where the market is going,” he says in the video.
He later claims that Roche Freedman’s lawsuits have distracted US regulators, which has resulted in the spotlight being turned away from Ava Labs:
“They (Ava Labs) have not been sued yet and there is a reason for that. I’m engaged in making sure the SEC and CFTC have other magnets to follow.”, while then admitting that he is helping to ensure that there is no such eventuality, such as regulation, for Ava Labs.
Avalanche’s reply
The topic of Crypto Leaks, as was normal, made the rounds on Crypto Twitter, resulting in Ava Labs founder and CEO Emin Gün Sirer taking a public stance:
“How could anyone believe something as ridiculous as the nonsense of the conspiracy theory in Cryptoleaks? We would never have engaged in the illegal, unethical and wrongful behavior referred to in these videos and the inflammatory article. Our technology, our team and our work speak for themselves.”
The trail…
However, Roche Freedman’s LinkedIn account makes no mention of Ava Labs and there is no public record from any place that confirms their relationship.
Interestingly, however, Gün Sirer has previously described Roche Freedman as “top notch” and Avalanche’s official Twitter account is one of her 627 followers. Avalanche, Gün Sirer and Sekniqi follow Roche’s personal account.
