Jacob Dolich, co-founder and former president of Layer1, has filed a lawsuit against the mining company demanding the transfer of ownership of a $20 million power plant in West Texas, The Block reports.
The lawsuit filed on October 30 in the Texas Western District Court sheds light on the internal conflict at Layer1, which had previously expressed support for billionaire investor Peter Thiel and planned to become „the largest mining company in North America.
Together with the lawsuit, Dolić filed a motion for injunctive relief to sell the Layer1 power plant. The petition was granted on 30 October.
Layer1’s CEO Alex Leagle said in a comment for The Block: „The lawsuit filed by Dolić has no grounds. It consists of their statements, which are inaccurate and false. The injunction against the sale of the power plant is based on a false assumption, as we do not plan to sell it“.
Dolich co-founded Layer1 together with Ligl and Ivan Kirillov in June 2019.
In his lawsuit, Dolić claims that Leagle promised him at the time to raise „substantial funding“ from US venture capital investors of $50 million.
They then began negotiations to buy a power plant to support their bitcoin mining business.
However, due to the fact that at that time Leagle was unable to raise funds from any venture capitalists, Dolić decided to pay for the acquisition with his own funds. He hoped to get the money back after Leagle had finished raising funds. Layer1 was the buyer in the acquisition transactions.
According to Dolic, from 2019 to 2020, Ljigl could not raise any funds.
„Apart from Dolic’s investments, Layer1 had no source of income or capital,“ the claim says. „According to the information available, Leagle has never invested its own money or attracted money from venture capitalists.
In October 2019, Layer1 announced that it had raised $50 million in investment from Peter Thiel and Shasta Ventures. However, in August 2020, The Block and CoinDesk learned that Layer1 had only raised $23 million from the founders at the time.
Dolich claims that Ling had ‚cut off‘ his access to Layer1’s management and that his departure from the company had led to ’serious financial problems‘, which led Ligl to consider selling the power plant.
„On Monday, 26 October 2020, Leagle flew to Texas to sell the power plant for a penny. He planned to complete the transactions before Dolić could defend his rights,“ the lawsuit states.
