lawsuit

According to Bloomberg, a judge in Delaware has ruled that a shareholder lawsuit against several directors of Coinbase Global Inc., including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, can proceed, despite an internal investigation that cleared the defendants of wrongdoing.A shareholder of the cryptocurrency platform filed the lawsuit in 2023, claiming that the directors, including CEO Brian Armstrong, used confidential information to sell more than $2.9 billion in stock during the company's 2021 IPO, thereby avoiding losses of over $1 billion. According to the shareholder's complaint, Brian Armstrong, who has served as CEO since Coinbase's founding in 2012, sold $291.8 million worth of stock.

President Trump sues the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion, claiming that tax forms were leaked. (Jin Shi)

According to Cointelegraph, the co-founder and board member of the cryptocurrency infrastructure platform Cere Network is facing a $100 million lawsuit, with the plaintiffs accusing them of executing a "pump and dump" scheme that allegedly stole tens of millions of dollars from investors.The plaintiffs allege that co-founder Fred Jin and others violated lock-up commitments after the public offering of the platform's tokens, secretly selling $41 million worth of tokens and transferring the funds to personal wallets. The lawsuit also claims that they collaborated with market makers to use bots to fake trading volumes to cover up their actions. This is the second lawsuit Cere Network has faced this month. Previously, another co-founder filed a lawsuit on January 13, accusing Jin of misappropriating over $58 million in company assets. Currently, the price of the CERE token has dropped approximately 99.9% from its all-time high in November 2021.

According to Coindesk, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated in a court filing that it will dismiss the lawsuit against Gemini and its now-defunct Earn product. The document claims that since investors in Gemini Earn have recovered 100% of their assets, the lawsuit is no longer legally valid.The SEC sued Gemini and Genesis Global Capital in 2023, accusing the two companies of selling unregistered securities in the form of Gemini's yield-generating product, Earn. The SEC stated in the lawsuit that investors entrusted their funds to Gemini, which then lent those funds to Genesis, and that Genesis halted withdrawals after the FTX collapse in 2022 and the broader downturn in the cryptocurrency market. Last April, after Acting Chair Mark Uyeda took over the agency, the SEC paused the lawsuit.

Trump has filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and CEO Jamie Dimon, accusing the bank of refusing to provide financial services to him and his businesses for political reasons. He hinted at taking legal action over the weekend on the Truth Social platform. The Trump family claims they were forced into the cryptocurrency industry because they were blacklisted by major banks.His son, Donald Trump Jr., stated, "We got into cryptocurrency because we were de-banked." Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial, supported by the Trump family, has applied for a banking license this month to promote its stablecoin business.

According to a report by The Paper, Xunlei has filed a lawsuit against former CEO Chen Lei and his core team, accusing them of harming the company's interests, with a claim amounting to 200 million yuan. The case has been accepted and filed by the relevant court in Shenzhen. Chen Lei recruited his hometown friends and close associates through Xunlei's former senior vice president Dong Xue, placing them in key positions within the company. They allegedly used illegal means such as fabricating transaction links and creating false contracts to siphon off company funds, involving a substantial amount.The new management has already conducted a cleanup and adjustment of Xunlei's related businesses and personnel. In addition, Chen Lei is also suspected of misappropriating tens of millions of company funds for illegal cryptocurrency trading, which is explicitly prohibited by the state.Chen Lei joined Xunlei as Chief Technology Officer in 2014 and was promoted to CEO in 2017. In 2020, Xunlei dismissed him on suspicion of embezzlement. Subsequently, the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau initiated an investigation into Chen Lei and others suspected of embezzlement. To evade investigation, Chen Lei and former senior vice president Dong Xue have left the country.

According to a report by The Paper, Xunlei has filed a lawsuit against its former CEO Chen Lei and his core team, accusing them of harming the company's interests, with a claim amounting to 200 million yuan. The case has been accepted and filed by the relevant court in Shenzhen. Chen Lei recruited his hometown friends and close associates through Xunlei's former senior vice president Dong Xue, placing them in key positions within the company. They allegedly used illegal means such as fabricating transaction links and creating false contracts to siphon off company funds, involving a substantial amount.The new management has already conducted a cleanup and adjustment of Xunlei's related businesses and personnel. In addition, Chen Lei is also suspected of embezzling tens of millions of company funds for illegal cryptocurrency trading, which is explicitly prohibited by the state.Chen Lei joined Xunlei in 2014 as the Chief Technology Officer and was promoted to CEO in 2017. In 2020, Xunlei dismissed him on suspicion of embezzlement. Subsequently, the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau launched an investigation into Chen Lei and others suspected of embezzlement. To evade investigation, Chen Lei and former Xunlei senior vice president Dong Xue have left the country.

The law firm Burwick Law represents retail investors in a revised lawsuit against Pump.fun, Solana Labs, and related executives. Previously, the judge allowed the plaintiffs to submit a second amended complaint, adding 5,000 private messages as new evidence, accusing them of orchestrating a "pump and dump" scheme.The lawsuit reveals that Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen admitted in private messages that most investors on the platform lost money, stating, "We made it easy for ordinary people to trade small coins worth under $50,000, but this also exposed everyone to an extremely low probability of winning, just like gambling." The lawsuit also claims that some crypto KOLs were paid to promote meme coins without disclosing their financial interests and were informed in advance about the purchase targets.However, the article points out that the evidence in the lawsuit is mostly based on rumors and lacks empirical proof of direct profits for Pump.fun executives, maintaining a reserved stance on the "criminal organization" allegations.

According to NBC, Trump denied colluding with the U.S. Department of Justice to file a criminal lawsuit against Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, stating that the federal court's subpoena to Powell is unrelated to whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has accepted a class action lawsuit in 2025, accusing the famous rapper Drake of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in the process of promoting and using the cryptocurrency casino Stake.us. The complaint also names well-known streamer Adin Ross and an Australian citizen alleged to have assisted in the fraudulent activity as defendants.The plaintiffs claim that the defendants used the tipping feature of Stake.us for fund transfers and concealed the flow of funds related to music streaming manipulation, while the platform is accused of evading U.S. gambling regulations under the guise of a "social casino." The lawsuit seeks no less than $5 million in damages and requests a jury trial. This case is not the first time Drake and Ross have faced legal risks for promoting Stake.us.

The Galaxy Digital research team released a 2026 forecast indicating that it is still possible for Bitcoin to reach an all-time high in 2026. The options market currently prices the possibility of around $70,000 or $130,000 by the end of June 2026 at roughly equal odds, and similarly for around $50,000 or $250,000 by the end of 2026. These broad ranges reflect uncertainty in the short term. There remains a downside risk in the short term until BTC firmly re-establishes itself above $100,000 to $105,000. However, it is expected that by the end of 2027, BTC will reach $250,000.Other parts of the forecast include: no Solana inflation reduction proposals will pass in 2026, and the current proposal SIMD-0411 will be withdrawn without a vote; the ratio of application revenue to network revenue will double; the SEC will face lawsuits from traditional market participants or industry organizations due to innovation exemptions; a major bank/brokerage will accept tokenized stocks as collateral; DEX will account for over 25% of total spot trading volume; Polymarket's weekly trading volume will continue to exceed $1.5 billion; the U.S. will launch over 50 spot altcoin ETFs, along with another 50 crypto ETFs (excluding spot single-coin products); net inflows into U.S. spot crypto ETFs will exceed $50 billion; and over 15 crypto companies will go public or upgrade their listings in the U.S.

According to The Block, a cryptocurrency class-action lawsuit accusing Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks of deceiving investors by promoting the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Voyager Digital has been dismissed.The lawsuit claims that Cuban made multiple false statements about the company before Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection (Chapter 11) in 2022. At the time of Voyager's bankruptcy filing, the value of the cryptocurrency assets on its platform was approximately $1.3 billion. Voyager's collapse was part of a broader market downturn triggered by the collapse of the Terra blockchain, which resulted in about $40 billion in market value evaporating and ultimately led to its founder Do Kwon being sentenced to 15 years in prison earlier this month.

The founder of India's largest cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, Nischal Shetty, confirmed that the long-standing ownership dispute with Binance has entered formal litigation. The dispute dates back to 2019 when Binance announced its acquisition of WazirX, but the two parties have since publicly "clashed" multiple times over control and operational rights. Shetty stated that both sides are now "sticking to their guns," and the outcome of the lawsuit is crucial. Additionally, Shetty responded to the dispute with the custodian Liminal. WazirX had attributed part of the responsibility for the 2024 hacking incident (which resulted in losses exceeding $230 million) to its multi-signature custody infrastructure, but Liminal publicly rebutted this and released data to question it.

The well-known American law firm Burwick Law has announced that it is preparing to file a lawsuit against Believe and its founder Ben Pasternak, and has opened a registration website for the affected community.In October of this year, the Believe ecosystem token LAUNCHCOIN announced that it had completed the upgrade to the BELIEVE token. As of the time of publication, the BELIEVE token has dropped from a peak of $120 million to $10.15 million, with a daily trading volume of only $195,400.Burwick Law has previously initiated multiple lawsuits in the crypto space, including lawsuits against projects such as LIBRA, M3M3, and pump.fun.

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal tweeted that Coinbase has filed a lawsuit related to prediction markets in Connecticut, Michigan, and Illinois. "Prediction markets are fully under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, not any state gambling regulatory agency (let alone 50 states). Attempts by states to control or completely shut down these markets stifle innovation and violate the law."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Terraform Labs' planned administrator has filed a lawsuit against Jump Trading, accusing the company of involvement in the collapse of Do Kwon's crypto empire. The lawsuit seeks $4 billion in damages, with defendants including Jump Trading and its executives William Disomma and Kanav Kariya.

The U.S. court has been asked again to weigh in on the practice of Maximum Extractable Value (MEV). A judge has approved a motion to allow the amendment and resubmission of new evidence related to MEV trading practices in the class action lawsuit against Pump.fun, Jito Labs, and the Solana Foundation.The plaintiffs allege that Pump.fun uses MEV technology to allow insiders to acquire new tokens at a low price, which are then sold to retail participants after being pumped up, with retail participants serving as exit liquidity for the insiders. Solana Labs, Jito Labs, and others are mentioned in the allegations as having facilitated this.

According to Cointelegraph, a class action lawsuit against the U.S. crypto-friendly bank Silvergate is calling for investors with accounts linked to FTX or Alameda Research to submit claims. The lawsuit involves a $10 million settlement to address allegations of whether "Silvergate Bank, Silvergate Capital Corporation, and Alan J. Lane assisted and abetted the tortious conduct of FTX, Alameda, and Sam Bankman-Fried."According to court documents, investors wishing to participate in the settlement must submit claims or opt out by January 30, 2024. Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro has scheduled a final hearing for February 9. The FTX bankruptcy case has contacted over 46,000 potential claimants by mail, who may receive a proportional share of the settlement.Silvergate was one of the few crypto-friendly banks in the U.S. that had business dealings with the FTX exchange, which collapsed in November 2022. The bank voluntarily ceased operations in March 2023.