Canceled digital currency conference faces ‘massive’ lawsuit

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The organizer of a digital currency conference, dubbed ‘Massive Adoption,’ is facing a massive class-action lawsuit after failed to repay the attendees as promised when he cancelled the event.

Jacob Kostecki was scheduled to host the event on February 27-28, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee. In the months leading to the event, he sold packages that included tickets to the event, accommodation and plane tickets to around 2,000 people. What was eye-catching was the surprisingly low prices he offered, with packages going for as low as $400. He ended up collecting $75,000 in the process.

In late January, Kostecki announced that he had cancelled the conference due to cash issues, but promised to pay back all the attendees. Three months later, the attendees have yet to receive a penny.

The lawsuit was filed by David Silver, a partner at Silver Miller, a law firm with expertise in the digital currency field. Silver says that he took the action because he felt Kostecki was taking advantage of people who couldn’t afford legal representation.

Silver took to Twitter to explain why his firm had taken up the case, calling Kostecki out for making empty promises on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/dcsilver/status/1252261288962600960

And while law firms usually take a cut once a class-action lawsuit is settled, Silver revealed that his firm will take on the case pro-bono. The goal is to maximize the victims’ recovery, he stated.

Silver had tried to settle the case out of court, he revealed, stating, “We approached Mr. Kostecki several weeks ago with a simple offer to resolve the debts he has already acknowledged he owes to the would-be Massive Adoption attendees. Mr. Kostecki declined our simple offer and instead thinks that blaming the worldwide health crisis and making more empty, time-delaying promises on Twitter is his way out of this.”

The saga has led to heightened scrutiny of Kostecki’s past, and the revelations have been damning. Having moved to the U.S. in 2014 from his homeland in Poland, he has used the opportunity to allegedly scam Polish startups, promising them connections to American investors. According to multiple reports in Poland, he would allegedly take money from the startups and promise to help them get their products to the United States, only to disappear with the funds.