X sues its own users for running a fake bitcoin news bot farm
X has sued Vivek Kumar Sen and Zmyang Sherpa for running fake bitcoin headline accounts to fraudulently earn creator rewards from the platform.
X is suing two men for allegedly building a network of fake bitcoin news accounts to farm payouts from X’s own creator fund.
The lawsuit names Vivek Kumar Sen and Zmyang Sherpa as the alleged masterminds behind the scheme, with law firm Lewis Silkin LLP representing the platform. At stake is at least 207,000 pounds ($277,000) in disputed creator-fund payouts. Costs for further damages from investigations and remediation are still unquantified.
The lawsuit named nine accounts as part of the alleged network: @Vivek4real_, @Bitcoin_Teddy, @saylordocs, @TrendingBitcoin, @Kalshibacktest, @PolyBackTest, @BTC_Vibes, @MrSuperBitcoin and @Laserlump. These accounts circulated fake “breaking” news headlines that often matched word for word and appeared on X just seconds apart.
Most of these posts made unsubstantiated, unverified claims involving big players in finance to draw mass attention, such as claiming Goldman Sachs' CEO was pushing a crypto bill or saying Citibank had bought $12.6 million in bitcoin.
The lawsuit further alleges that defendants operated accounts that repeatedly liked, replied to, and reposted these posts to create a facade of false engagement.
The @Vivek4real_ handle appeared to expand the scheme by offering paid engagement and manipulation services to third parties, soliciting the purchase of additional high-follower accounts. The lawsuit cites a message in which Sen allegedly wrote to a third party about buying their account: "Can we continue on another channel, please, as you haven't enabled encrypted chat and I don't want us to get in trouble for something X doesn't allow. If you understand what I mean."
X terminated all accounts linked to this network on Aug. 18 on grounds of “coordinated revenue sharing fraud and platform manipulation.”
These accounts received payments through shared Stripe accounts with mismatched names and were linked by shared devices and login identifiers. For instance, one account’s Stripe payment details were registered to “Stefan Mann,” while the linked bank account and email address were in Sen’s name.
X now wants the creator payout money back, along with damages for fraud and conspiracy. X’s Senior Legal Directors, Diego de Lima Gualda and Adam Mehes, signed the particulars of the claim.
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
X's litigation against fake crypto news bot networks signals escalating friction between social platforms and their creator monetization models. The case targets accounts that gamed X's rewards system by automating low-effort content—a recurrent problem across platforms offering crypto-denominated or fiat payouts to creators. This differs from typical content moderation (account suspension) by establishing legal liability, suggesting X views bot farming as fraud rather than mere violation of terms.
The incident reveals structural vulnerabilities in permissionless creator economies. Bitcoin and crypto communities historically valued X as unfiltered information channels; fake headline bots degrade signal quality and erode platform trust precisely where financial information carries real capital allocation weight. For crypto projects relying on X as primary distribution, this underscores the risk of platform-dependent communities facing institutional enforcement actions that constrain growth of native creator ecosystems.