Proton Management responds to allegations: Swan Bitcoin does not own any mining business

Proton Management argued in a court filing that Swan Bitcoin does not own any mining operations of its own, responding to the latter's allegations that Proton and six former Swan Bitcoin employees conspired to "steal" its mining operations. "Swan does not have its own mining operations," Proton's lawyers wrote in a filing on Monday. "Rather, as Swan has stated in its complaint and publicly admitted, its so-called mining operations are actually just a separate entity called 2040 Energy, which is funded entirely by Tether." Tether is not a defendant in the lawsuit, and a spokesperson for the company has previously denied all suggestions of wrongdoing. "2040 Energy is not controlled by Swan, although Swan holds a minority stake in the company. Through the work and talents of the individual defendants, 2040 Energy successfully developed a mining business," Proton said. In addition, due to Swan's unstable financial situation, it carried out a round of large-scale layoffs in July 2024. (CoinDesk) It was previously reported that 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.