Tether Sues Swan Bitcoin Over Contract Breaches
Swan had accused Tether of aiding a hostile takeover and former employees were accused by Swan to have stolen proprietary information in order to launch a rival company, Proton Management. Burwick Law, a law firm based in Solana, is planning to take legal action against Pump.fun, a launchpad that has enabled scams and other harmful activities, which have led investors to suffer serious losses. BitMEX, its parent company HDR Global Trading, and their subsidiaries were each fined $100,000,000 for violating the Bank Secrecy act. This brought an end to many years of court battles.
Tether and Swan Bitcoin Clash
Tether, which issuing the USDT stablecoin filed a suit against Swan Bitcoin and accused it of breaching their agreement. Tether, in a statement released jointly with 2040 Energy confirming the lawsuit, stated that Swan’s irresponsible actions were a violation of their contract. The case, filed at the High Court of England and Wales is the latest in a long-running legal dispute between these two companies.
This dispute began in 2022 when Tether and Swan formed 2040 Energy. It was a Bitcoin-mining venture. Tether funded operations while Swan provided the funding.
Swan claimed that employees from its mining division had stolen proprietary information including business strategies and software codes to create a competitor company called Proton Management. Swan claims that these employees engaged in a “rain and Hellfire” scheme to undermine its position within the company. Michael Holmes, Swan’s former director of business development and Raphael Zagury (now Proton’s CEO), were among the main figures involved in this plan.
Swan claimed Proton had used Swan’s trade secrets in order to compete directly with Swan, causing severe damage to its market position. Proton was also blamed by the firm for convincing Tether not to support Swan but rather Proton’s mining project.
In August 2024, Swan’s CEO Cory Klippsten had been removed from his position as CEO at 2040 Energy and Proton took control of all mining operations. Swan claimed that Tether had facilitated a hostile takeover of the mining operations. Tether, however, denies these claims.
Swan also sued Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, its own firm, for malpractice in November 2024. Swan claimed that Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher abandoned their case against Proton when they took on Tether. The law firm broke ethics laws that prohibit such conflicts. Swan CEO Cory Klippsten called this move a betrayal which caused severe harm to Swan’s business.
Burwick targets Pump.fun over investor losses
Burwick Law is a US-based cryptocurrency law firm that recently revealed its intent to take legal action for investors who have suffered financial losses as a result of the Pump.fun meme coin launchpad. The firm said in a Jan. 15 post that they spent many months helping people lose large sums of money due to rug pulls and meme coins. These platforms, like Pump.fun, facilitate these scams. In a post on X from Jan. 15, the firm stated that it spent months working with people who lost large amounts of money to meme coins, rug pulls, and unfulfilled promises which were facilitated through platforms like Pump.fun.
Burwick claims that Pump.fun has generated millions in fees, while also allowing for harmful, antisocial behavior, such as displays of drug abuse, racism and violent actions, on the platform. Pump.fun, a Solana based platform for meme coins allows users to launch and create their memes without any technical knowledge. It was criticized for its role in scams, unethical practices and attracting millions of users. Data from Dune analyst Adam Tehc shows that, in fact, only 0.4% out of 14 million crypto wallets using Pump.fun made profits greater than $10,000.
Pump.fun allowed for live streaming to promote tokens, but the feature was suspended after being misused in dangerous stunts. In December, the UK Financial Conduct Authority blocked access to Pump.fun to mitigate cryptocurrency-related scams. The firm invited affected investors to participate in its investigation and said that the class action group might be worth millions.
Burwick Law, in addition to its legal battle against Pump.fun is also pursuing other projects related to crypto. This includes cases against Moonbirds NFTs and Proof Collective, as well the Full Send Metacards NFTs that were promoted by The Nelk Boys.
A judge fines BitMEX 100M dollars for BSA violations
HDR Global Trading Limited (parent company of BitMEX), a crypto exchange, was sentenced by a federal judge to two years unsupervised probation, as well as hefty fines of $100 million. John Koeltl delivered the ruling on January 15 at the US District Court for Southern District of New York, about six months after BitMEX had pleaded to violate the US Bank Secrecy act (BSA), by failing to establish an adequate Anti-Money Laundering program.
These charges were allegedly a result of BitMEX not complying with BSA regulations, since the platform only required users to provide an email. It allowed users to circumvent proper Know Your Customer requirements.
US authorities claimed BitMEX had illegally gained over $155 million from US sources in the period 2015-2020 and demanded a fine of $417,000,000. The court, as part of its sentencing process, dismissed all charges against BitMEX and instead imposed a smaller fine.
BitMEX Statement to its Users
BitMEX in its statement to users called the charges “old news” and expressed that they are very disappointed with the added fine even though this is much less than the amount the Department of Justice originally sought. In a statement to its users, BitMEX called the charges “old news” and expressed that it is very disappointed at the additional fine even though it’s far less than what the Department of Justice initially sought over the years.
BitMEX’s co-founders Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo as well as employee Gregory Dwyer were already facing sentencing for violating BSA in 2022. They also received probation. Hayes Delo and Reed also had to pay $30m in fines as part of a settlement agreement with the CFTC.
This recent ruling appears to be the end of BitMEX’s long-running criminal and civil case against its executives and BitMEX, which has lasted for almost four years. Arthur Hayes, who was CEO of BitMEX from 2020 to 2021, resigned and turned himself in to US authorities after accusations related to BSA violations.