Chinese cryptocurrency investor ‘Feng Bin’ is suing crypto exchange OKCoin for blocking him from accessing 38.748 BCH received during last year’s hard fork.
OKCoin Sued by Chinese Investor Over Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Dispute
A Chinese cryptocurrency investor going by the pseudonym Feng Bin has filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin over its refusal to allow him access to 38.748 BCH – currently valued at more than $23,000 – that he received during the August 2017 Bitcoin fork. He is reportedly seeking compensation in the amount of 171,182.50 CNY ($25,000).
According to China’s LegalWeekly, leading up to the fork, OKCoin had posted the following on its website:
If you hold bitcoins on the platform, the platform will give users Bitcoin Cash equal ownership in accordance with the user.
However, the plaintiff (Feng) is claiming that in December 2017, when Bitcoin Cash was trading as high as $4000 or more, he tried to withdraw the BCH he had received during the fork but was unable to do so as he “found that there was no ‘button’ to extract the [BCH] that the platform promised.”
OKCoin Denies Withdrawal, Claims Plaintiff Missed Deadline
Upon contacting OKCoin about his inability to withdraw his Bitcoin Cash, Feng claims that he was told:
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 the time, it will be impossible to make [a] later withdrawal.
Feng denies that any withdrawal deadline was ever announced by the exchange:
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.
OKCoin to Contest Lawsuit
For its part, OKCoin fully intends to challenge Feng’s claims and questions the legitimacy of his claim to the Bitcoin Cash holdings. They are citing the lack of trading activity on Feng’s account in 2017 as “abnormal” given the market conditions, even going so far as to allege that the lawsuit was potentially part of some “malicious scheme” on Feng’s part.
Do you think that Feng’s claim is legitimate? If you received Bitcoin Cash on OKCoin’s platform from last year’s fork, did you ever see any mention of a withdrawal deadline? Keep the conversation going in the comments below.
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