Swan Bitcoin, a mining company, accused several former employees of stealing trade secrets and copying its business model at the instruction of Tether

BlockBeats reported that on September 28, Australian mining company Swan Bitcoin has filed a lawsuit against a group of former employees and consultants, accusing them of planning and executing a secret plan with the help of Tether to "steal" its lucrative Bitcoin mining business.

Swan Bitcoin said that six of its former employees stole Swan's trade secrets (including "unique code", hash rate optimization technology and financial models) and used them to create an "illegal copy company" of Swan's Bitcoin mining business, Proton Management, and all of this was approved by Tether.

It is reported that Tether provided funding for Swan's Bitcoin mining business in Tasmania, Australia in 2023, and negotiated with Swan for another round of financing in February this year. According to the lawsuit, Tether's advisor, Zach Lyons of Marlin Capital Partners, told Swan that Tether would lead Swan's Series C financing with an investment of $25 million, valuing Swan's business at up to $1 billion. Tether CFO Giancarlo Devasini was also very happy with Swan CEO Cory Klippsten, and had told him many times that "he thought Klippsten was the best CEO in the field."

But Swan said Tether was actually a "two-faced person." According to the lawsuit, Zach Lyons of Marlin Capital Partners began meeting secretly with Swan's former mining director Raphael Zagary (who was not listed as a defendant in the lawsuit) and other employees in late June, telling them that Swan was "not valuable" to Tether, and hinting that Swan's employees might leave Swan and join Tether or other operators and "continue to do what they are doing."

With Tether’s tacit approval and an agreement to provide “legal cover” for the coup, Swan’s former mining director Raphael Zagary began “creating divisions and chaos within Swan, discrediting Klippsten and inciting Swan’s consultants and employees to leave Swan” in mid-July. The $25 million in funding promised by Tether will become a dead letter. The chaos has taken a toll on Swan, which announced on July 22 that it would abandon its IPO plans, shut down its managed mining division and lay off about 45% of its employees.