CZ, Powell and more rally to raise funds for over $1M in legal fees for on-chain sleuth ZachXBT

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has received over $1 million in donations from the crypto community in a little over 24 hours to pay for his legal fees in a defamation lawsuit.

ZachXBT, known for his investigative work in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, is embroiled in a legal dispute with Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother.

On June 16, Huang announced in a tweet that he had filed a defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, accusing him of damaging his reputation through false accusations.

While Huang did not specify what those allegations were, in June 2022 a Article Posted by ZachXBT titled “22,000 ETH embezzled and over ten failed projects: The story of Machi Big Brother (Jeff Huang)”, where he blamed Huang for launching “over 10 failed pump and dump token and NFT projects”. Accused of.”

Responding to the lawsuit in a series of tweets on June 17, ZachXBT called the lawsuit “baseless” and “an attempt to silence free speech”. He set up a donation wallet address for his followers to assist with the legal fees, which he believes could “easily exceed” $1 million.

3/ I am creating a donation address to help with the legal costs associated with the defense of this case, which could easily exceed $1m USD.

All unspent funds will be returned to the contributors on a pro-rata basis.

— zachxbt (@zachxbt) June 16, 2023

He said the lawsuit is “sickening,” but he “knew one day” it would happen, because it is the “price” of honesty.

“The price of telling the truth is sometimes people disliking what you say,” he tweeted.

Related: Crypto Phishing Scams: How Users Can Stay Safe

Many crypto executives donated to ZachXBT and praised him for his work in the crypto and web3 industry.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of crypto exchange Binance, praised ZachXBT in a do asking him to “keep the industry transparent” along with a pledge that Binance would “contribute $50K” towards his legal fees

Jesse Powell, co-founder of crypto exchange Kraken, also thanked ZachXBT for “all that” he has done, saying he will donate 10 ethereum (ETH) (about $17,294.30).

For 10 ETH. Thanks for all that you do. May you get success

— Jesse Powell (@jespow) June 18, 2023

Meanwhile, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal tweeted that ZachXBT is “the reason Web3 survives and thrives,” They said that he will donate 5 Ether (approximately $8,645.35).

Just a day after ZachXBT tweeted a link to the donation wallet address, he has passed the $1 million mark in contributions.

Cointelegraph previously reported in October 2022 that French authorities used ZachXBT’s research to charge five people suspected of stealing $2.5 million worth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) through phishing scams.

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