ZachXBT, a renowned cryptocurrency investigator, finds himself facing a lawsuit filed by Machi for defamation. In a post, ZachXBT revealed compromising information about Machi, accusing him of embezzling funds and participating in fraudulent schemes. Faced with this situation, ZachXBT claims that the person concerned is trying to muzzle him by exerting financial pressure.
ZachXBT sued
Whether in dark stories of hacks, scams or more generally scams of all kinds in the crypto environment, you must have heard of ZachXBT before.
His name has already come up several times in our columns, whether during the famous $63 million Harmony bridge hack, his investigation into 5 French scammers at the end of last year, or even more recently about the hack of ‘Atomic Wallet.
If you don’t know him, ZachXBT defines himself as an “on-chain investigator”. He has, on countless occasions, allowed to avoid many hacks, warned of dubious projects by tracing their activity on the blockchain, or even helped law enforcement internationally in investigations involving deep technical skills in the crypto ecosystem.
But today, ZachtXBT – which has over 400,000 Twitter followers – decided to call on its community. The on-chain investigator is the subject of a legal complaint from Jeffrey Huang, better known under the pseudonym Machiabout which he wrote an article in June 2022.
1/ It’s unfortunate I have to make this thread but I am being sued by MachiBigBrother for an article I published in June 2022.
Today Machi filed the defamation lawsuit. The lawsuit is baseless and an attempt to chill free speech. I intend to fight back & defend free speech. pic.twitter.com/anVY6zXU5a
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) June 16, 2023
ZachXBT appealed for donations because he believes the legal costs could top $1 million. At the time of writing these lines, nearly $820,000 was raised in less than 24 hours.
Leading players participated in the joint effort like Justin Sun, the founder of Tron (TRX), but also Bankless and CertiK or even Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon (MATIC), in parallel with many anonymous people who continue to give every minute.
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A “tainted” reputation in question
According to the plaintiff, ZachXBT would have damaged his reputation in a “defamatory” article where the investigator reveals in particular that he would have embezzled 22,000 Ethers (ETH) in 2018 (i.e. more than 30 million dollars at that time) and launched more than a dozen pump and dump projects, or even non-fungible token (NFT) projects with no future to generate profit.
I have consistently maintained that the allegations in his article are false. I look forward to proving through the lawsuit that @ZachXBT unlawfully defamed me.
— Machi Big Brother (@machibigbrother) June 16, 2023
“A year ago, ZachXBT published an article about me on Medium that damaged my reputation. Today I filed a libel suit against him in the United States District Court for the District of Texas. I have always maintained that the allegations in his article were false. I look forward to proving through this lawsuit that Zach unlawfully defamed me. »
The complaint filed by Machi requires in particular ZachXBT (his identity has also been revealed through the document) that he pay him compensatory damages in an amount to be determined by the court.
For its part, ZachXBT fully assumes its 2022 article. According to him, Machi would try to silence him through financial pressure :
“This lawsuit is baseless and an attempt to interfere with freedom of expression. I intend to fight back and defend freedom of expression. […] I understand that Machi is very rich. I am not. He uses his money to try to silence me. »
The on-chain investigator clarified that the amounts paid to him will only be used to pay the legal costs incurred. The surplus will then be refunded to donors in proportion to their donations..
Finally, note that ZachXBT will be defended by law firm Brown Rudnick, which notably assisted actor Johnny Depp in her lawsuit against Amber Heard.
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Source: Arkham Intelligence
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Passionate about the world of decentralized finance and the novelties brought by Web 3.0, I write articles for Cryptoast to help make blockchain more accessible to everyone. Convinced that cryptocurrencies will change the future very soon.
Maximilien Prue
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