Recently, the Crypto world saw a disarrangement between two crypto influencers.
Ben Armstrong, a YouTube influencer known as “BitBoy Crypto,” filed a defamation lawsuit against fellow social media star Erling Mengshoel, known on Youtube as “Atozy”.
Armstrong is suing Mengshoel for alleged defamation. The lawsuit claims that Mengshoel wrongly accused Armstron of defrauding his audience by endorsing a bad cryptocurrency (aka sh*t-coins).
“BitBoy Crypto” claimed in his lawsuit, that Erling Mengshoel harmed his business relationships after criticizing him in a video released in November 2021.
Atozy’s Accusations
In that video, Atozy said to his fanbase of over 1 million people, that Armstrong was promoting scams and pumping micro-cap coins to his fanbase, aiming for personal profit.
“This is not someone you should be looking up to for any advice whatsoever,” said Atozy during his video. “he simply cannot be trusted with financial advice because you don’t know if he’s trying to enrich you, or himself”.
Atozy also accused BitBoy Crypto of promoting scam cryptocurrency projects to his audience. As an example, Atozy showed a video where BitBoy Crypto promoted “Pamp Network”.
Pamp Project was a price-reactive cryptocurrency that promised to give out “rewards” to holders staking their currency.
While promoting the coin, Bitboy Crypto stated that he expected the project’s token to reach the value of six dollars in less than a couple of months. However, the project did not live long enough and its current value is close to none.
Pamp Network (PAMP) is currently valued at $0.00019364 dollars.
The video accused Pamp Project of being a “pump and dump” (the act of using false and misleading positive remarks to artificially inflate the price of a cryptocurrency that is owned, in order to sell the cheaply acquired stock for a greater price).
According to Atozy, Bitboy’s promotion of the currency allowed the developers to raise the prices of currency (at the time of Bitboy’s video, PAMP reached close to $3 dollars in value).
The Lawsuit
Armstrong claims in his lawsuit that Atozy’s “attack piece” had a major negative impact on his business.
Bitboy claims that Atozy’s video caused a decline in his following, hurt his reputation, and gave him a great deal of concern. The Youtuber claimed that being perceived as a felon, a fraud, and untrustworthy was his greatest fear.
The suit states that Mengshoel “repeatedly calls Armstrong a ‘dirtbag,’ stating that he is a ‘shady dirtbag’ and a ‘dirtbag YouTuber.’”
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta. The lawsuit is a federal suit, meaning it involves impact and losses in excess of $75,000.
