Long time critic of Bitfinex and Tether @bitfinexed has been threatened by a lawsuit brought by the law firm Steptoe & Johnson on behalf of Bitfinex.

In the long running battle between @bitfinexed and the Bitfinex exchange, @bitfinexed has long claimed market manipulation through the use of Tethers which he claims are not backed by real currency and were used in order to artificially boost the price of Bitcoin. He also asserts that wash is trading taking place on both Bitfinex and now on Kraken as well. Wash trading is when a person or group working together places sell orders and then buys those order themselves. The purpose is to either create fake volume or to create a fake sense of demand for a coin. Wash trading is illegal on most regulated exchanges around the world. Kraken has recently made the move to remove fees on trading Tethers when above a certain volume. @bitfinexed claims this is proof that they promote wash trading.

However, as of now, neither Bitfinex or its legal team has officially stated exactly what legal measures or what laws they may use against @bitfinexed. However, in a statement and possibly the most ironic part of this whole thing is that they claim @bitfinexed was the one who was involved in market manipulation through his false reporting.







@bitfinexed has stated that Bitfinex has a long history of filing lawsuits they have no chance of winning or even planning on following through with. He used the example of when Bitfinex sued Wells Fargo only to withdraw the lawsuit later on. If a lawsuit were to go through, one would think that Bitfinex would have to prove the claims against them to be false, which would mean opening up their books to an audit, which is what @bitfinexed and other critics of Tethers have wanted all along.

So far, it seems Bitfinex is spending more time hiring legal teams and PR firms than working on an audit of their Tethers which they have promised for months.

For more background on the Tether situation, you can read an explanation here.