ResearchHub, a scientific research site founded and self-funded past Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, is allegedly based on piece of work stolen from its not-launched competitor, a new courtroom filing suggests.

Blockchain accelerator MouseBelt Labs filed on Fri a complaint with the Superior Court of the State of California, alleging that Armstrong's ResearchHub has something to do with Knowledgr, a enquiry platform in which MouseBelt had invested.

The filing alleges that Armstrong was offering investment in Knowledgr while secretly working on his own competing project, ResearchHub, in order to steal some of the resources that MouseBelt put into Knowledgr.

According to the filing, Knowledgr's founder, Patrick Joyce, reached out to Armstrong in early on 2022 after the Coinbase CEO laid out principles of "a possible open-source, scientific publishing platform" in an article in Feb. Armstrong reportedly became interested in Knowledgr and told Joyce that he might fund his own research site to exist a competitor just might too invest in Knowledgr after learning more well-nigh it.

But according to the plaintiff, "this was all a ruse," as Armstrong had already been developing ResearchHub "for over half-dozen months" and "saw Joyce and Knowledgr as a dramatic fourth dimension- and toll-saving hack."

After leaving Knowledgr in April 2022, Joyce joined ResearchHub every bit the primary scientific officeholder in May 2022, according to his LinkedIn contour.

The filing argues that Armstrong'due south ResearchHub is designed to employ tradeable tokens in a similar mode to Knowledgr. According to the plaintiffs, Armstrong too offered Knowledgr the opportunity to listing its tokens on Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.s.a..

The filing goes on to criminate that Armstrong offered investment and list opportunities to Knowledgr in the first place in gild to destroy the potential competitor likewise as steal from the projection, stating:

"It was Armstrong's and the other Defendants' intent to steal MouseBelt's work for themselves, to not only eliminate a potential competitor just to obtain for ResearchHub the benefits of the financial, design and technical resources MouseBelt put into Knowledgr, thereby allowing ResearchHub to launch sooner at less price a successful platform based entirely or substantially on MouseBelt's work."

"We believe the claims are entirely frivolous and we look forward to proving our case in courtroom," a spokesperson for Coinbase told Cointelegraph.

Related: US authorities goes to court over $11M USDT purportedly stolen by fake Coinbase rep

Based on the concept of Armstrong'south "Ideas on how to ameliorate scientific research" postal service from early on 2022, ResearchHub has a mission to advance the pace of scientific research by providing a "GitHub for science." The open-source project allows researchers to upload articles while providing incentives for contribution using ResearchCoin (RSC), a newly created ERC-20 token.

Co-ordinate to some of the latest posts from Armstrong, ResearchHub has been actively seeking contributors recently.