Ava Labs’s “Conspiracy theory nonsense”
On August 29, a Crypto Leaks blog post revealing the truth behind a “secret pact” of Avalanche caused a stir in the Twitter community. Ava Labs, the blockchain startup responsible for the research and development of Avalanche, paid off law firm Roche Freedman to attack many of its competitors such as Solana (SOL), Internet Computer (ICP), and even Binance.
Roche Freedman is said to have worked with Ava Labs since August 2019. Crypto Leaks alleged Ava Labs formed a secret pact with US law firm Roche Freedman to use the American legal system “gangster style” to attack and harm crypto organizations. In return, Ava Labs granted Roche Freedman a massive quantity of Ava Labs stock and Avalanche cryptocurrency (AVAX).
The founder of Roche Freedman, Kyle Roche, even said he was the first person to receive Ava Labs stock after Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the venture capital fund that provided the initial capital for AVAX. kyle Roche confirmed that the “secret pact” with Ava Labs involves the firm conducting lawsuits against various platforms in the crypto space to support AVAX with two main purposes:
- Harm AVAX’s competitors, thereby helping the platform to be more prestigious with the community.
- Distract US regulators, including US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Not only the textual evidence, Crypto Leaks also released videos of the conversation between Ava Labs and Roche Freedman. Furthermore, in the past, the fact that Solana sued as an unregistered securities or Binance.US alleged misleading investors about Terra were both filed by Roche Freedman, so the evidence released by Crypto Leaks appears to be trustworthy.
Even Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also expressed his disappointment at AVAX after this news broke: “This is wild. Not sure if this is true, but assuming the videos are not deep fake… And of course, #binance was a target. We are not even a competitor.”
“This is crazy. I’m not sure if that’s the case but the videos don’t seem to be fake. Unexpectedly, Binance was the target of the attack. We’re not even seen as a platform that competes fairly with them”, he added.
Other “facts” also came to light
To keep his conspiracy under wraps, AVAX founder Emin Gün Sirer regularly supports other blockchain projects. For example, he supported Solana users when they were affected by the Slope crash and then offered technical theories on what might have happened. However, Roche Freedman LLP’s recently involved a high-profile lawsuit against Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko on July 1, 2022, claiming that Solana violated US Federal Security laws by offering unregistered securities to U.S investors.
About two weeks earlier on June 15, Roche Freedman LLP also filed a lawsuit against Binance, claiming that the crypto exchange had illegally engaged in the sale of UST to investors.
Before Kyle Roche founded Roche Freedman and struck a deal with Ava Labs, he was an associate at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which represents Ripple and is defending a lawsuit involving XRP as a security. as alleged by the SEC.
Roche Freedman LLP’s was recently involved in a high-profile lawsuit against Solana Labs, Solana Foundation, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko on Jul 1, claiming that Solana violated U.S. Federal Security laws by offering unregistered securities to U.S. investors.
About two weeks earlier on Jun 15, Roche Freedman LLP also filed a lawsuit against Binance, claiming that the crypto exchange unlawfully engaged in the sale of UST to investors.
Before Kyle Roche founded Roche Freedman and made a deal with Ava Labs, he was an associate at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which represents Ripple and was defending a lawsuit involving XRP as a security, according to the SEC’s allegation.
Kyle once suggested to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse that he set up a new law firm (Roche Freedman) to sue other crypto firms, using the same “strategy” as Ava Labs now to support Ripple. So, Kyle recommended Brad Garlinghouse become an angel investor, and surprisingly he agreed.
It’s not clear why the Ripple CEO invested in Kyle Roche and backed Roche Freedman, although this move is unlikely to save Ripple from the SEC. The troubles Ripple has been facing with regulators and its association with Roche Freedman/Ava Labs could portend a bad future for AVAX and its founder Emin Gün Sirer.
Is AVAX really innocent?
However, Emin Gün Sirer later denied Crypto Leaks’s claims and confirmed he was not involved in any illegal actions.
“How could anyone believe something so ridiculous as the conspiracy theory nonsense on Cryptoleaks? We would never engage in the unlawful, unethical and just plain wrong behavior claimed in these self-serving videos and inflammatory article. Our tech & team speak for themselves.”
In addition, the community found an article by lawyer Lee A. Schneider, and General Counsel at Ava labs as well, published in June that rejected arguments that Solana were securities. Mr. Lee A. Schneider stated:
“Let’s restore sanity to Howey by actually reading it, and rejecting the silly theory advanced by the plaintiffs’ bar and the Fallacious Framework. Leave SOL (and lots of other tokens) alone.”
Despite Mr. Lee A. Schneider’s article, on July 6, Kyle Roche and his law firm Roche Freedman still filed a lawsuit against Solana. These things show that Ava Labs and Kyle Roche are unlikely to be related in this case and AVAX appears to be “innocent”. Even so, that doesn’t seem to be enough to “save” AVAX, which was down more than 8% over the past 24 hours and is trading 18.87 at the time of writing.
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