A Chinese bitcoin investor has filed a lawsuit against Okcoin in what Legalweekly has described as the first Chinese suit pertaining to last year’s bitcoin fork.
A cryptocurrency investor has brought a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Okcoin regarding 38.748 BCH.
The plaintiff accuses the exchange of failing to allow him to claim the Bitcoin Cash that were created following last year’s fork, to which the exchange allegedly responded that he had failed to claim the coins within an apparently undisclosed deadline.
First Chinese Lawsuit Pertaining to Bitcoin Fork Filed Against Okcoin
According to the publication, the plaintiff, who is known by the pseudonym Feng Bin, alleges that “at the beginning of December 2017”, upon attempting to withdraw the 38.748 BCH corresponding to his BTC balance held with the exchange at the time of the fork, Feng Bin “found that there was no ‘button’ to extract the BCH that the platform promised.”
Plaintiff Claims No Deadline Was Given for Okcoin Users to Claim BCH
Feng Bin claims that after contacting the company to report the issue, Okcoin responded by stating that “The claim ‘button’ was a program that automatically executed BCH input to user’s account.
You cannot claim BCH anymore as the program has been removed from our platform. If you didn’t withdraw it at that time, it will be impossible to make later withdrawal”, despite the company’s announcement on August 1st, 2017, stating: “If you hold bitcoins on the platform, the platform will give users Bitcoin cash equal ownership in accordance with the user.”
“I have been paying attention to the announcement of the Okcoin currency release. In all the announcements, there is no declaration of the deadline for receipt and the removal of the program”, Feng stated.
Plaintiff Seeks Reparations for Inability to Sell BCH During Price Peak
Mr. Feng is also seeking reparations for the “losses” caused as a result of being unable to sell his BCH at peak prices. As such, the plaintiff is seeking 169,969.22 yuan (approximately $25,000 USD in total).
Okcoin has reportedly questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Feng’s claim to the holdings, purportedly describing the lack of trading activity conducted by the account during 2017 as “not normal” given the market conditions of last year.