Celsius countersues KeyFi and alleges ‘incompetence and deceit’

ambcrypto.com:

Celsius, the New Jersey-based bankrupt cryptocurrency lending company, has countersued decentralized DeFi aggregator KeyFi and its CEO Jason Stone. It is claiming that KeyFi lost CEL worth millions of dollars through incompetence and deceit.

Celsius’s suit comes on the heels of KeyFi suing Celsius a few weeks back for allegedly failing to honour a profit-sharing agreement.

Celsius claims that KeyFi CEO Jason Stone falsely represented himself as a pioneer and expert in coin staking and decentralized finance investments. However, KeyFi allegedly lost coins from Celsius wallets worth millions of dollars due to mismanagement and deceit. Celsius also alleges that KeyFi used these stolen coins to buy hundreds of NFTs and transferred them to its wallets. It has also sold some of these assets for seven-figure returns, the lawsuit alleges.

Celsius also alleges in its lawsuit that Stone and KeyFi relied on the cryptocurrency mixer, Tornado Cash. Stone and KeyFi laundered millions of dollars of Celsius property on multiple occasions using the same, it added.

Tornado Cash was recently blacklisted by the U.S. Department of the Treasury due to its use in multiple money laundering cases.

Celsius has demanded that KeyFi should be made to pay punitive damages for its criminal misconduct.

The suit also claims that in August 2020, Celsius and Stone agreed that Celsius would set up a wholly-owned subsidiary to acquire KeyFi assets and operate Celsius’s staking and DeFi activities with Stone as the CEO of that subsidiary. When Celsius found out that KeyFi had been using Celsius coins for other purposes, it asked Stone to return the coins.

In late March 2021, Stone replied that the KeyFi team would ensure the “complete return of all Celsius tokens