About seven weeks after Keyfi founder Jason Stone filed a lawsuit against crypto lender Celsius, the company filed a countersuit against Stone claiming he stole millions from Celsius wallets and allegedly ” pocketed seven-figure returns”. Stone’s attorney, Kyle Roche, said the lawsuit was an attempt to “rewrite history” and use Stone as a “scapegoat” for the company’s financial troubles.
Celsius Strikes Back Keyfi Founder Jason Stone
Struggling crypto lender Celsius has filed a lawsuit against former employee Jason Stone, the founder of Keyfi and the collector of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) known as “0xb1”. On July 7, 2022, Stone told the public that he had filed a lawsuit against Celsius and he revealed that he had hired the law firm of crypto boutique Roche Freedman LLP.
The court filing claims that Celsius lent Stone crypto assets that would be used for staking purposes and the company later demanded to recover the funds. However, not all of the funds were reportedly returned and Celsius says there “remained a substantial gap”.
“As Celsius would only later learn, Stone’s repeated assurances that he could, and would, return all of Celsius’ coins were lies intended to conceal the fact that he had lost or stolen a significant number of coins” , insists Celsius. The company further alleges that instead of staking the tokens, Stone used them to purchase NFTs.
The crypto lender also accused Stone of using the now-sanctioned mixing app Tornado Cash to mask on-chain movements. “Stone and Keyfi laundered millions of dollars of Celsius property (or its proceeds) through Tornado Cash on dozens of occasions,” the court said.
While Stone’s lawsuit said the crypto lender’s entire portfolio was exposed to the market, Celsius’ court filing insists that Stone stole funds from the lender. “The defendants were not only incompetent, they were also thieves,” the Celsius countersuit alleges.
“[Stone took] tens of millions of dollars from Celsius wallets, misappropriated crypto assets to buy and steal non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and pocketed seven-figure returns,” the company’s attorney explains in the court filing.
Stone’s attorney says court filing an attempt to rewrite history
Following Celsius’s lawsuit, Roche Freedman LLP partner Kyle Roche tweeted about Celsius’s allegations against Stone. “As alleged by Keyfi in the lawsuit filed last month, the compensation Keyfi received (including in the form of NFTs) was expressly authorized by Celsius CEO Alexander Mashinsky,” Roche wrote.
“The transactions at the center of their complaint were not only publicly visible, but also announced by Mr. Stone on Twitter. In fact, after Mr. Stone announced these purchases, Celsius and Mr. Mashinsky sent Keyfi tens of millions more to deploy in challenge,” Roche said.
Stone’s attorney added:
Celsius’ most recent filing is an attempt to rewrite history and use Keyfi and Mr. Stone as scapegoats for their organizational incompetence.
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