A class-action lawsuit was launched against BlockFi’s executives, two directors, and cryptocurrency exchange Gemini by an investor with approximately $2 million in frozen funds in the insolvent cryptocurrency lender.
Investor Trey Greene accused the defendants of numerous wrongdoings, including violating the consumer fraud and exchange acts, breaching its fiduciary duties, and offering and selling unregistered securities in a complaint submitted on February 28 to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
“The unregistered securities sold by the BFI [BlockFi] Defendants on behalf of BlockFi were marketed and sold via a steady stream of misrepresentations and material omissions by Prince and Marquez over several years and through intermittent misrepresentations by Defendant Gemini.
Greene asserts that he put more than $1.5 million into interest accounts that are allegedly unregistered securities, earning interest that was reinvested and generating over $400,000 in capital gains.
On Nov. 10, the day FTX filed for bankruptcy, BlockFi froze all withdrawals, preventing him from accessing the money at this time.
Greene further asserts that the false statements made by BlockFi founders Zac Prince and Flori Marquez that the offerings were equivalent to federally insured bank products persuaded him to purchase the “unregistered securities”.
BlockFi was accused of “failing to register the offers and sales of its retail crypto lending product” by the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 14, but according to the filing, the exchange “admitted its [interest] accounts were unregistered securities” throughout the proceedings, which led to a $50 million settlement on February 15.
It is alleged that Tyler Winklevoss Gemini misrepresented how accessible these assets were to customers when it provided custodial services to BlockFi’s clients and kept custody of those clients’ cryptocurrency holdings.
“Gemini knew of, and acquiesced in, the materially false and misleading statements about the status safety, and accessibility of Plaintiff’s and class members’ assets at Gemini and about the risks of loss. Gemini supplied materially false and misleading information to BlockFi for use in marketing the BIAs [BlockFi interest accounts].”
Gemini was not included in the other claims, although it is claimed that it violated the exchange act.
For each of the alleged counts, Greene is requesting damages, including “treble damages” for violations of the consumer fraud act, payment of his legal fees, a full refund of all funds received by the defendants, the interest that has accrued, and a judgment barring future violations of the consumer fraud act.
All BlockFi stockholders who bought their unregistered BlockFi Interest Accounts between March 4, 2019, and November 10, 2022, are those who are represented in the class action.
The defendants will receive a summons and must reply to the complaint within 21 days of receiving it in order to avoid having to pay Greene’s entire sum-in-suit demand.
