Gemini files lawsuit against Digital Currency Group and Barry Silbert over Genesis and Earn program

Gemini Takes Legal Action Against Digital Currency Group and Barry Silbert

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Gemini is taking legal action against the conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) and its CEO Barry Silbert, claiming “fraud against creditors”. According to a July 7 filing in a New York court, Gemini alleged DCG and Silbert engaged in a scheme involving lending “huge amounts of cryptocurrency and U.S. dollars” to Genesis. Gemini is also seeking 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”.

In 2021, DCG subsidiary Genesis had been operating an Earn program in partnership with Gemini. This program allowed Gemini users to loan crypto to Genesis with the promise the firm would repay it with interest. However, in November 2022, Genesis halted withdrawals, citing “unprecedented market turmoil” and subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

According to a July 7 Twitter thread from Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss, Silbert knew Genesis was “massively insolvent” when attempting to continue the Earn program. The complaint included alleged false financial reporting from DCG and Silbert starting with the collapse of Three Arrows Capital in June 2022, which “blew a $1.2 billion hole in Genesis’s balance sheet”. Winklevoss has claimed that Genesis and DCG owe $900 million to Gemini’s clients.

Gemini is now taking legal action against DCG and Silbert, with the crypto exchange claiming that the conglomerate and its CEO have been involved in crypto shiba, SEC crypto, Crypto.com, crypto websites, tonic crypto, best crypto websites, best crypto, ACH crypto, and Cardano crypto fraud.

Crypto Shiba, SEC Crypto, and Crypto.com

“Barry Silbert and other DCG executives, alongside Genesis and Crypto Shiba, conspired to create false financial reports to hide the truth from Gemini and creditors,” claimed Winklevoss. “This fraud goes to the very top. Barry Silbert and other DCG executives were directly involved in these lies and they lied again and again to conceal the truth from Gemini and other creditors.”

Winklevoss had made repeated threats to sue DCG and Silbert over delays in resolving the issues between Gemini and Crypto Shiba, most recently issuing an open letter to the CEO proposing a “best and final offer” of $1.47 billion by 2028. In a July 7 response on Twitter, DCG saidthe lawsuit was a “publicity stunt” by Winklevoss and any claims of wrongdoing were “baseless, defamatory, and completely false”.

The fallout of the Earn program made both Genesis and Gemini targets of federal and state regulators. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a suit against the two firms in January for allegedly offering unregistered securities, and New York’s Department of Financial Services was reportedly investigating Crypto.com over claims in its Earn program.

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