ZachXBT sued for defamation over MachiBigBrother exposé

A throwback article came back to haunt one of the crypto industry’s favorite crypto investigators. ZachXBT, a popular crypto on-chain sleuth recently got slapped with a defamation lawsuit over an article published last year.

the controversial article that started it all

About a year ago, ZachXBT published a Article Jeffrey Huang aka MachiBigBrother has been accused of embezzling crypto assets using a variety of methods from failed pump and dump tokens to NFT projects. The article quickly attracted widespread attention at the time, but had been largely forgotten by this point.

Jeffrey Huang, known online as Machi Big Brother, is a former Taiwanese-American musician and tech entrepreneur.

Huang has now filed a defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, claiming the year-old article has damaged his reputation. Huang insisted, according to at least one Post that he published on Twitter that ZachXBT’s allegations are false and defamatory. As a result, he has decided to file a defamation suit.

On the other hand, a cursory reading of the article reveals that it is an investigative piece that goes into great detail. In the article, ZachXBT provided on-chain data to support his claims. Crypto sleuths initially accused Machi Big Brother of embezzling 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial, a treasury management platform built for blockchain companies, in 2018. Furthermore, ZachXBT then provided a list of other projects such as Machi X and Wife Finance.

Total market cap still sitting above $1 trillion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap on TradingView.com

How ZachXBT is fighting back against the lawsuit

ZachXBT is not taking this lawsuit lying because he is swinging against a baseless lawsuit with an “attempt to silence free speech”. ZachXBT has asked his followers and subscribers to support him against censorship and cancel culture, ensuring that the truth lives on.

He dubbed the whole situation a “classic David and Goliath story”, and many people spoke out defending their right to express their opinions on social media. Brown Rudnick, a law firm headquartered in Boston that is famous for defending Johnny Depp in his case against his ex-wife Amber Heard, has agreed to represent ZachXBT in the lawsuit.

While defending the lawsuits can be costly, ZachXBT says he will rely on donations from his followers to fund a proper defense. In this case, he says the legal costs associated with defending the case could easily exceed $1 million when the donation address is provided. Donations have started pouring in. At the time of this writing, the addresses now contain over $290,000.

The outcome of this case could have significant implications for the crypto media and the rules surrounding defamation and libel of public figures in the crypto industry.

Featured image from Legacy Design Strategies, chart from TradingView.com