Crypto Sleuth ZachXBT Sued, Community Raises $700K

Jeffrey Huang, popularly known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother, has sued on-chain sleuth ZachXBT for defamation over an investigative article he wrote in 2022.

ZachXBT stated on June 16 that the lawsuit was “baseless and an attempt to chill free speech.” The on-chain sleuth said he intended to fight the lawsuit and called for the community’s help.

Crypto Community Pulls Together, Over $600k Raised

Since his call for donations, a wallet tagged Zachxbtlegalfund has received more than $690,000 in different cryptocurrencies from over 500 donors.

Most of the donations were in Ethereum and other stablecoins, but some donors sent memecoins, like PEPE and others.

Meanwhile, Web3 Knowledge Graph Protocol 0xScope stated that major donors include Tron’s Justin Sun, who donated $10,000 TUSD; Kraken’s Jesse Powell, with $17,000; and Memeland, who donated $11,800. One donor also created a ZACH token and donated the transaction taxes to the fund. Other notable donors include blockchain security firm, Certik.

Besides the donation, Boston-based law firm Brown Rudnick has also offered to represent ZachXBT. A partner at the law firm, Stephen Palley, announced this on Twitter. Brown Rudnik has experience in the industry and successfully represented Johnny Depp in the defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard.

The outpour of support for ZachXBT has shown just how much the crypto community values his work. The on-chain detective has worked pro-bono for years, exposing multiple crypto scams. His detailed investigations have assisted law enforcement agencies in identifying and prosecuting several crypto scammers.

ZachXBT’s Lawsuit

Jeffery Huang, known as MachiBigBrother, sued ZachXBT because of a Medium article published in June 2022. In the piece, the on-chain sleuth accused Huang of embezzling 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial in 2018.

The article details how Huang ventured into crypto with several sketchy projects that ended up being pump-and-dump schemes, citing several on-chain data. ZachXBT stated that this culminated in the withdrawal of 22,000 ETH from the Formosa Financial treasury wallet in 2018.

Meanwhile, Huang tweeted that the lawsuit was to prove that the allegations were false. He said he has consistently maintained that the allegations were false and he was going to prove it through the courts.

“I have consistently maintained that the allegations in his article are false. I look forward to proving through the lawsuit that ZachXBT unlawfully defamed me.”