Coinbase CEO Stole Blockchain Startup’s Work, Lawsuit Alleges

The Coinbase CEO reportedly stole ideas from a blockchain startup for a viral project under the idea of a possible investment. Meanwhile, it is said that the cryptocurrency exchange committed fraud, according to a lawsuit.

In detail, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was creating a platform for publishing academic research that used tradable tokens when he discovered a similar platform called Knowledgr. This is according to a complaint filed by MouseBelt Labs, a blockchain accelerator that had invested and worked in Knowledgr. Like Knowledgr, Armstrong’s ResearchHub would award participants with tokens similar to Bitcoin.

According to MouseBelt’s complaint, Armstrong proposed to the leader of the Knowledgr project a financial acquisition and the chance to list the tokens on Coinbase.

The lawsuit says,

Armstrong had no intention of funding Knowledgr or helping it launch its project. Instead, his plan was to divert Knowledgr’s proprietary assets to his own project and eliminate a potential rival, MouseBelt alleges.

At the same time, MouseBelt alleges in its complaint’

It was Armstrong’s and the other Defendants’ intent to steal MouseBelt’s work for themselves, to not only eliminate a potential competitor but to obtain for ResearchHub the benefits of the financial, design, and technical resources MouseBelt put into Knowledgr, thereby allowing ResearchHub to launch sooner at less cost a successful platform based entirely or substantially on MouseBelt’s work.