• Tether said it will fight Celsius' "baseless" lawsuit against it and in any scenario Tether token holders will not be impacted.

• Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius sued Tether for fraudulently securing itself as part of a loan agreement.

Tether, the company behind USDT, the world's largest stablecoin by market capitalization, said it will defend itself against what it called "shakedown" litigation brought by bankrupt crypto lender Celsius.

On Friday, Celsius asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York to order Tether to relinquish a total of 57,428.64 bitcoin (BTC) or award the "present value of all Bitcoin," some $3.3 billion at today's price, according to a court filing.

"This lawsuit incredibly now seeks the return of approximately US$2.4 billion worth of BTC from Tether, despite the BTC being liquidated at Celsius’ direction and with Celsius’ consent at June 2022 prices," Tether said in a statement on its website. Tether did not say how it calculated the $2.4 billion figure.

The case concerns a loan agreement between Celsius and Tether that allowed Celsius to borrow stablecoins "to operate certain critical aspects of its business," according to the lawsuit. In the filing, Celsius alleges that when the market crashed in mid-2022, in the "ninety-day period prior" to Celsius' bankruptcy filing, Tether insulated itself from the impending bankruptcy by making "preferential and fraudulent transfers" of bitcoin.