Celsius Files Countersuit against KeyFi

Gross mismanagement and thievery claimed.

Celsius has had a rough go at it lately , this is well known in the crypto community at the moment. The company has filed a countersuit lately against KeyFi and the company CEO Jason Stone.

This began with Jason Stone and KeyFi suing Celsius for what they call a Ponzi Scheme. Stone stated Celsius refused to honor their contract. The KeyFi leader was suing for damages meant to be “determined at trial”.  The lawsuit was filed last Thursday and alleged Celsius used customer funds to “manipulate crypto asset markets” the lawsuit also alleged the company failed to institute basic accounting controls thus endangering deposits and failing to carry through on promises.  All of this was explained in a tweet by the KeyFi CEO with the handle of 0xb1.

Stone stated there was more than $2 billion in assets being handled by his company for Celsius ad that the company had promised him that adequate measures were taken for mitigating risks and not allowing for any impermanent loss- which is when the price of deposited tokens changes compared to the price at which they were deposited.

Stone alleged the promises made by Celsius were completely empty and that the company was completely negligent in how things were handled. 

Celsius has since gone on the offensive and has decided to claim a countersuit. The counterclaim states that Stone represented himself as a pioneer and expert in constaking and DeFi investments, all of which were very false. Celsius states that Stone and KeyFi proved themselves incapable of deploying coins profitably and have lost thousands of their coins through mismanagement. Celsius goes on to call the company and its CEO thieves.

The countersuit claims Stone and his company were the real villains and millions in coins were stolen from wallets controlled by Celsius. The suit also states that Stone purchased multiple NFTs with the Celsius assets. The Celsius coins also appear to have been used for investments into various blockchain companies and platforms. Celsius claims all of these are things Stone and his company wrongfully did.

KeyFi was actually acquired in 2020 by Celsius and in July of 2022 the company sued Celsius for the refusal to honor the contract. During the same month the company sued Celsius the crypto lender filed for bankruptcy protection and paused all withdrawals  and swaps. 

One last claim by Celsius is that Stone used Tornado Cash to obfuscate his transfers and send $1.4 million to himself through the now sanctioned app. Celsius is seeking “withheld property” and damages for willful and malicious conduct.

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