According to a court document, crypto blogger Tiffany Fong is a creditor of the insolvent cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, and Celsius Network either intended to take legal action against her for disclosing confidential information or may be considering doing so.
According to a snapshot posted by Fong, she presently has crypto assets worth over $119,000 held on Celsius, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Polygon (MATIC). This is despite the fact that the company temporarily halted withdrawals in the middle of June 2022 before declaring bankruptcy the following month.
Since then, she has been regularly updating YouTube and other social media sites with her reporting on the bankruptcy case as it develops. Fong has often divulged stolen company data, which she claims was handed to her in confidence by irate former Celsius workers.
Kirkland & Ellis International, Celsius’ legal representatives, stated in an itemized sixth monthly fee statement submitted to the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court on April 14 that it had spent 77 billable hours, or roughly $72,000, on an invoice labeled “Tiffany Fong litigation.”
The legal firm began working on this matter on January 26 and reported its final hours of work on February 6. The filing demonstrates that Celsius’ legal counsel was particularly looking into the leaked material Fong reported on via her social media sites, even if a specific legal action doesn’t appear to have been developed as of yet.
The motion to compel, which often seeks courts to enforce a request for information pertinent to a case, and cease and desist letters for Fong was also included in the filing by Celsius Law Firm. Fong has written about internal information leaks involving corporate bids for Celsius assets, purported recordings of confidential company talks, and purported transaction activity of executives such as former CEO and founder Alex Mashinsky, to mention a few.
Fong, in an interview with Cointelegraph, was blunt in her accusations that Celsius is “using customer funds in an attempt to sue a creditor” over a matter that, in her opinion, was never a legal matter to begin with: “I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s crap. Due to the fact that I am not an employee, I did not violate a non-disclosure agreement. They owe me 3.1 BTC and 11.6 ETH as a creditor.
Additionally, Cointelegraph has contacted Celsius for comment on the prospective legal action. If they react, we will update this post.
Fong, who is presently in New York for the 2023 NYC NFT tournament, added fuel to the fire on April 15 when she posted on Twitter that she had approached Alex Mashinsky and his wife Krissy Mashinsky after spotting them on the street.
In a video that was uploaded to Twitter, the Mashinsky pair can be seen hastily leaving when other crypto content producers including BitBoy Crypto (Ben Armstrong) and Fong approach to strike up a dialogue.
