Does Ava Labs Employ A Deathsquad of Crypto Lawyers?

Wild accusations AND video from the site Crypto Leaks broke a massive story last week. The anonymous site claims that Ava Labs, makers of the Avalanche blockchain, have a “secret pact” with Kyle Roche and his firm, Roche Freedman. In exchange for Ava Labs stock and 1% of the AVAX token supply, the thirty lawyers of Roche Freedman have directed legal attacks far and wide against AVAX’s competitors in the crypto industry. Roche Freedman is currently running dozens of class-action lawsuits against notable companies such as Solana and Dfinity. Yesterday, Roche withdrew a similar class-action suit directed against Binance. 

Crypto Leaks’ story is backed up by video recordings that were surreptitiously made during meetings at Kyle Roche’s Miami office. In that meeting, Roche details the close relationship he has with Ava Labs and its founder, Emin Gün Sirer. In 2019, Ava Labs and Roche Freedman moved in together sharing a co-working space. Roche then brags that his tokens vested super early, second only to Ava’s VC investor, Andreessen Horowitz. 

The reason for the close relationship? Roche is a “Strategic instrument” for Ava. Two main motivations fuel Roche Freedman’s lawsuits in the crypto sphere. One obvious reason to sue is to suppress the prices of, and support for, Ava’s competitors. The second reason is much more deviously ingenious: by suing “half the companies in [the] space,” Roche, and by extension Ava Labs, gets access to all a defendant’s “confidential accounts, commercial data, email and social media communications.” This is all legally done as part of the pre-trial discovery process. Thus, Kyle Roche boasts that he is a top 10 global crypto expert. After all, he has “seen the insides of every single crypto company!”

In response to this story, Roche took to Medium to deny the story’s allegations. He claims the video was made under false pretenses by someone working for Dominic Williams, creator of the ICP token. Williams is a defendant in one of the aforementioned Roche Freedman lawsuits. Kyle goes on to say that his firm only works on the “defense side” of cases for Ava. 

Echoing his lawyer’s sentiments, Emin Gün Sirer tweeted his own rebuttal to the Crypto Leaks story. Sirer claims that Ava “would never engage in the unlawful, unethical and just plain wrong behavior claimed in these self-serving videos.” He even ponders, “How could anyone believe something so ridiculous as the conspiracy theory on CyptoLeaks (sic)?”

Within a day, Crypto Leaks responded with what appeared to be part of the Roche Freedman partnership agreement detailing the internal disbursement of AVAX tokens amongst partners. 

This troubling story has dealt a blow to the integrity of Ava Labs–are they really employing lawyers to hurt competitors? Are they committing legalized industrial espionage? Only time will tell the full truth. While Crypto Leaks claims that the video of Kyle Roche was produced “in accordance with applicable laws,” it seems clear that the video is a violation of Florida law. The state has an all-party consent standard regarding the admissibility of covert recordings. Crypto Leaks’ video is also highly edited and Roche is fed leading questions by his furtive filmmaker. These ethical questions aside, there is a lot of damning evidence presented by Crypto leaks. Additionally, the story is being continually updated as the Crypto leaks community finds more evidence. 

AVAX has dipped 17% this week, due in part to this news. Hopefully the fallout from this story, and the Roche Freedman docket, will not hurt more of the industry.