Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse found itself in the latest pile of allegations levied by crypto whistleblower Crypto Leaks that he agreed to the proposal of becoming Kyle Roche’s angel investor in suing crypto competitors.
This, as per the documents, was meant to draw away regulators’ attention.
Denying the rumors Garlinghouse tweeted,
“Can’t comment on the validity of the slew of allegations in here, but I can unequivocally say that I have never met or spoken to (much less invested in) Kyle Roche.”
Crypto Twitter was rocked by allegations of a deep-rooted conspiracy from a Crypto Leaks report on Aug 26. As per the videos that the whistleblower uploaded on Friday, Emin Gün Sirer and Kevin Sekniqi, the respective CEO and COO of Ava Labs had inked a “secret deal” with American law firm Roche Freedman to “target and ruin crypto organizations.”
According to CryptoLeaks, Roche Freedman and Kyle Roche have a “special” agreement to provide legal services to Ava Labs in exchange for AVAX tokens and a major stake in the firm.
They also allegedly planned to use “litigation as a tool” to stamp out rivals and mislead regulators like the Security Exchange Commission [SEC] and Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC].
In one video Roche said that he would “makes sure that the SEC and CFTC have other magnets [Avalanche competitors] to go after”.
Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer fired back terming the accusations as “conspiracy theory gibberish” and stated that they would never engage in these “self-serving videos and inflammatory articles”
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao a.k.a CZ too chimed by describing the allegations as “wild,” and wondered if the videos were deep fakes. The tweet has since been deleted.
Another Trouble Heading for Ripple?
Interestingly BinanceUS was sued by Roche Freedman recently for the Terra blowup. But Crypto Leaks alleged that this was done under the directive of Ava Labs.
On the other hand, Ripple’s Garlinghouse remains embroiled in the long-drawn legal battle with the SEC. In the latest hearing, the blockchain firm received a minor relief after the regulator didn’t object to Ripple’s pursuit of protection for non-parties appearing in the Daubert challenge motions.
However, the latest development might signal trouble for the firm.