By Bitcoin News | Created at 2026-09-21 16:28:43 | Updated at 2026-09-21 17:30:27
1 hour ago
Social media giant X has filed a lawsuit against crypto influencers Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa, accusing them of fraudulently taking over $277,000 from the platform’s creator revenue-sharing program.
Key Takeaways
- • X Corp. sued crypto influencers in UK High Court over an alleged $277,000 creator payout fraud on Sept. 17.
- X retired its engagement sharing model, pivoting to an Original Content system that cuts paid bot metrics.
- Under the new 2026 guidelines, accounts with Community Notes automatically lose eligibility for monetization.
Account Suspensions and the Pivot to Original Content
Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media company X has sued two cryptocurrency influencers in the High Court of England and Wales, accusing them of fraudulently extracting more than $277,000 from the platform’s creator payment program.
In a civil complaint filed on Sept. 17, X Corp. and its European subsidiary, X Internet Unlimited Company, alleged that defendants Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa used a network of bitcoin-focused accounts to post identical content, boost each other’s metrics, and manipulate user interaction data.
The legal action follows the platform’s suspension of the accounts on Aug. 18. It comes shortly after X retired its creator revenue-sharing program and replaced it with a new system focused strictly on original content. Instead of paying for raw, overall engagement, the new model strictly rewards accounts that create original posts, firsthand reporting, expert commentary, and self-produced videos or memes.
Furthermore, posts that are flagged as false, misleading, or deceptive via Community Note lose their eligibility for monetization.
According to court filings, X claims Sen and Sherpa, both residents of Preston, Lancashire, operated at least six primary monetized accounts as a single entity. The filing alleges the network generated payouts totalling at least $277,568 by posting near-identical posts within seconds of each other and using coordinated replies and likes to trigger algorithmic creator rewards.
X alleges that payment records, overlapping Stripe accounts, device tokens, and shared IP addresses linked the profiles together. In one instance detailed in the complaint, three network accounts allegedly replied to a single third-party post within 31 seconds using generic comments.
The social media platform is bringing claims of deceit, unlawful-means conspiracy, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment. X is seeking full restitution and damages for at least $100,000 in estimated investigation and remediation costs, plus legal expenses and interest.
Lawyers for X noted in the filing that the program required creators to publish authentic material and explicitly prohibited automated tools, coordinated engagement, or artificial boosting.
