Controversial Crypto Lawyer Kyle Roche Pulls Out of Nexo, Binance.US, Solana and Dfinity Lawsuits

The new withdrawals come a day after Roche filed to withdraw from class-action lawsuits involving Tether, Bitfinex, TRON and BitMEX.

By Tracy Wang, Nikhilesh De

Sep 1, 2022 at 9:03 p.m. UTC

Updated Sep 1, 2022 at 9:52 p.m. UTC

Crypto lawyer Kyle Roche has filed to withdraw from several class-action lawsuits against major crypto companies. (Mint Images RF/Getty Images)

Tracy Wang

Tracy is a deputy managing editor at CoinDesk. She owns BTC, ETH, MINA, ENS, various stablecoins, and some NFTs.

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Nikhilesh De

Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation. He owns marginal amounts of bitcoin and ether.

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Crypto lawyer Kyle Roche has filed to withdraw from several class-action lawsuits against major crypto companies, according to a series of court filings Thursday, after pulling out of four additional cases the day before.

The relevant lawsuits involve Nexo Capital, BAM Trading (which operates as Binance.US), Dfinity, and Solana Labs. Roche also withdrew from a class-action lawsuit against several universities.

The round of withdrawals come after similar filings on Wednesday revealed that Roche, a founding partner of law firm Roche Freedman, would be stepping away from his law firm’s class action practice.

On Wednesday, Roche filed to withdraw from aspiring class action lawsuits involving Tether, Bitfinex, the Tron Foundation and BitMex. Roche did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tether and Bitfinex, not content with Roche’s withdrawal, filed to request that Roche’s entire law firm withdraw from the case and destroy any material collected during the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

Last Friday, whistleblower site Crypto Leaks published a series of damning videos, accusing the lawyer of weaponizing class-action lawsuits to collect sensitive information on various crypto companies. The site also alleged Roche’s lawsuits purposely attacked competitors of the blockchain project Avalanche, which Roche allegedly received tokens from and has previously represented in legal matters.

Roche and Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer have denied those allegations.

Roche still represents Sirer in a smaller action, and also made an appearance Thursday during a hearing for crypto lender Celsius’ ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Roche represents KeyFi CEO and former Celsius employee Jason Stone, who is also suing Celsius for unpaid management fees.

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