Suing Exchanges for Forks

[ulhaq]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

I could imagine people pooling together to sue exchanges if this argument is viable.

[1714952516]

1714952516

[squatter]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?

Maybe, but there is no established legal basis. It'll be interesting to see what happens when a case like this actually goes to court. There's definitely no precedent. I mean, think about it logically: I could fork Bitcoin tomorrow. If no one adopts my fork, could you argue that exchanges are obligated to pay my fork's tokens to BTC depositors? There could be millions of forks like this. So we need clarity from the courts regarding what -- if any -- obligation exchanges have to pay out fork coins.

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

But does holding BTC in their custody entitle you to their private keys? We don't own/control the private keys in an exchange's wallet. They are definitely obligated to release BTC we deposited into their custody. Past that, I don't know.

[audaciousbeing]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

I could imagine people pooling together to sue exchanges if this argument is viable.

First of all, you are comparing an unregulated enterprise with another enterprise that is operating in a regulated atmosphere. For the fact that exchange sites performs the similar functions as that of a brokerage firm does not mean they are the same or they should be forced to comply with the same rule especially as it applies to regulations and performing a specific function.

Again, a lot of exchanges would issue a statement on their support for a particular fork or otherwise and would advise users to act on such. If your exchange site is not supporting your preferred fork, you have the option of moving to another  exchange. I know Yobit is one that support even nonexistent forks. Another option is to keep in your own wallet then claim at your pleasure.

Whether you can sue or not, is not negotiable but whether the judgement will be entered in your favor is another thing entirely that would be decided by the learned judges.

[HeRetiK]

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

But does holding BTC in their custody entitle you to their private keys? We don't own/control the private keys in an exchange's wallet. They are definitely obligated to release BTC we deposited into their custody. Past that, I don't know.

I think that's the key point here. The exchanges agreed to hold custody of your BTC and your BTC only. Any forks that may occur are a different matter, especially since anyone can fork BTC; and integrating alt coin wallets, especially hardforked coins is a non-trivial effort.

Worst case an exchange could argue that they charge a 100% fee on handling hardforks. Even traditional brokerages sometimes withhold parts of dividends in the form of a fee to cover their administrative overhead and the only thing that you can do as a customer is to switch to a different brokerage with better conditions.

Same holds true for cryptocurrency exchanges. If you are unhappy with their forking policy, just switch to a different exchange. If you fail to find an exchange that has a favorable forking policy, just withdraw the BTC back to your own custody. Unlike traditional assets the latter is at least an option with cryptocurrencies.

[ulhaq]

Again, a lot of exchanges would issue a statement on their support for a particular fork or otherwise and would advise users to act on such. If your exchange site is not supporting your preferred fork, you have the option of moving to another  exchange. I know Yobit is one that support even nonexistent forks. Another option is to keep in your own wallet then claim at your pleasure.

But a lot of exchanges have not issued any statements on forks. It would be one thing if each one announced, going forward, that forks would be, would not be, or may be supported. But many of them have not made any announcement or determination. One possibility would be a ruling compelling exchanges to grant forks retroactively, but not in the future.

Since the value is likely in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars (a significant amount of money for an exchange to dip its fingers into), I wouldn't be surprised if lawsuits occurred. This could change as time goes on if many of the forks become worthless, but if they become more valuable (and start competing with the main altcoins/bitcoin), then the issue should be become bigger. But at that point maybe exchanges would give into pressure and grant the forks.

[ChefBoyardeez]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

I could imagine people pooling together to sue exchanges if this argument is viable.

This sounds like something that could retro-actively bite a lot of exchanges in the ass if they did not have a written policy in effect at the time of forking.  It is a great question and at the onset of the BTC forking it is one of the things that I didn't like about my exchange. 

In all due fairness, they should retroactively reimburse forked coins if they did not have a policy whereby the user agreed to forego forked coins.

Why?  Because it is the right thing to do.  Whilst they were holding your coins they were making money off of them.  I promise you your held coins were being micro-traded by their exchange against other markets.  Additionally, they can most certainly AFFORD to do so even if they do not wish to offer trading the coin that was forked resulting in new coins for you. 

However, in the initial onset of this enterprise, it is unlikely we will ever see those coins without an organised and very LARGE movement against the exchanges for the forked coins.   Ultimately what will drive their decision will be end-user pressure to do so. 

You do need to keep customers happy and keep them loyal.  Especially with DECENTRALISED exchanges stepping up with lower or not trading fees and better security etc. 

This is a thread I will gladly follow and hope maybe we get a resolution to it.  In 5 years all the people who DID NOT get their coins maybe very wealthy if we can organize a large enough body to go after each exchange for this.  In the end it pays for the exchanges to not be greedy I think. 

[countryfree]

Exchanges aren't doing anything illegal, nor wrong here. It would be like suing a butcher because he doesn't sell horse meat. If a butcher only sells beef, that's his choice, and you're free to go to another to another butcher if you want some other meat.

Regarding fiat currencies now, within the Euro zone, it's pretty easy to exchange US dollars or Swiss francs, but it's much harder to sell Hungarian forints or Canadian dollars. Again, there's nothing illegal nor wrong.

[ChefBoyardeez]

Exchanges aren't doing anything illegal, nor wrong here. It would be like suing a butcher because he doesn't sell horse meat. If a butcher only sells beef, that's his choice, and you're free to go to another to another butcher if you want some other meat.

Regarding fiat currencies now, within the Euro zone, it's pretty easy to exchange US dollars or Swiss francs, but it's much harder to sell Hungarian forints or Canadian dollars. Again, there's nothing illegal nor wrong.

You have a point and that is a great analogy.  BUT...What if they were not supporting the currencies for the trading on their exchange, but did indeed hold onto a wallet for each account and accept the incoming forked currencies. 

That would be illegal.  Simply saying you won't support the coins on the exchange, but taking the coins due to the owners would be a huge issue. 

So it would require someone blowing a whistle or some sort of audit to discover such activity. 

There is a lot of money at stake and I refuse to believe exchange owners are just letting that go into oblivion. That is not the way financially savy people work.  More likely they are holding the coins, trading on them, and will give them to the owners when they have lost the value they started with.  But hey, I could just be drinking the conspiracy cool aid for too long to believe in people doing the right thing when it comes to vast sums of money at stake.

[Taltic]

It's not regulated, You agreed to play with they rules on their exchange and that's it.
The only option is to pull out your coins and put them in another exchange where you will get your coins.

[pawel7777]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?
...

The only 2 scenarios I can imagine, when you would have a ground to sue them is:

1) Exchange promised to credit fork-coins proportionally to customers' btc balance, but later changed their mind and didn't.
2) Exchange made it impossible for you to withdraw btc for unreasonably long period of time, i.e. overly long maintenance, your transaction was stuck as pending for weeks etc.

Other than that, they can do whatever they want, since, by not withdrawing, you didn't care about the fork.

It's kind of like saying: bank made profit on my 0% current account balance - I demand my share of it.

[ulhaq]

Exchanges aren't doing anything illegal, nor wrong here. It would be like suing a butcher because he doesn't sell horse meat. If a butcher only sells beef, that's his choice, and you're free to go to another to another butcher if you want some other meat.

Regarding fiat currencies now, within the Euro zone, it's pretty easy to exchange US dollars or Swiss francs, but it's much harder to sell Hungarian forints or Canadian dollars. Again, there's nothing illegal nor wrong.

You have a point and that is a great analogy.  

That is a terrible analogy. Beef CANNOT TURN INTO horse meat. But "bitcoin" did turn into "btc + fork"

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?
...

The only 2 scenarios I can imagine, when you would have a ground to sue them is:

1) Exchange promised to credit fork-coins proportionally to customers' btc balance, but later changed their mind and didn't.
2) Exchange made it impossible for you to withdraw btc for unreasonably long period of time, i.e. overly long maintenance, your transaction was stuck as pending for weeks etc.

Other than that, they can do whatever they want, since, by not withdrawing, you didn't care about the fork.

It's kind of like saying: bank made profit on my 0% current account balance - I demand my share of it.

Many exchanges have low withdrawal limits, so it can take a long time to withdraw the amount as BTC, while forks were taking place.



I imagine that whether there is a legal basis may be moot. If many persons pool together and sue the exchanges, the easiest way for them to resolve the issue would just be to release the forked coins.  

[squatter]

That is a terrible analogy. Beef CANNOT TURN INTO horse meat. But "bitcoin" did turn into "btc + fork"

Private keys -- not bitcoins. Bitcoins you have on deposit are completely unaffected by the forks. And you don't control or "own" the exchange's private keys. I'd be curious to see your argument made in court, but it's definitely not a slam dunk in my eyes.

I imagine that whether there is a legal basis may be moot. If many persons pool together and sue the exchanges, the easiest way for them to resolve the issue would just be to release the forked coins.  

It's not cheap to mount a class action, and some of the exchanges are structured to make legal claims difficult. I think Bitstamp and Coinbase are good examples of how compliance-minded exchanges view things. If there is significant customer demand and market value (as was the case with Bitcoin Cash), they'll release the forked coins.

[palle11]

Reading through the responses and OP's poser, I obviously see that there are going to be so many legal issues and enquiry that will emanate from transactions if cryptocurrency becomes properly adopted and regulated.

I could imagine people pooling together to sue exchanges if this argument is viable.

On this curiosity. Legally, you can't sue or get remedy for what you didn't bargain for.

If the fork of a coin as to receiving alongside your mother coin or any other agreement thereto was not included either explicitly or impliedly in the contract agreement, the appellant is likely not to succeed in the suit.

This is just on the flip side if there were regulations.

[European Central Bank]

you sent an exchange your bitcoin and in return you got a credit. it's not bitcoin. you should hopefully get bitcoin back but while it's in there it's an entry on a database.

if you wanted every possible fork then the only way to do it is to control your private keys. you give that up when you send to an exchange.

most exchanges stated what the deal was with forks before the time to let you decide. if you weren't sure of their position then you should've withdrawn.

i don't have any sympathy.

[CryptoBry]

I believe the same thing that exchanges should be releasing all the forked coins they received in the name of their members all because those coins are not theirs but of the members. I think this should have been part of the agreement or TOS for all exchanges before they are allowed to operate or continue doing business. It is plain and simple robbery actually if they don't release what rightfully are not theirs.

[ulhaq]

you sent an exchange your bitcoin and in return you got a credit. it's not bitcoin. you should hopefully get bitcoin back but while it's in there it's an entry on a database.

most exchanges stated what the deal was with forks before the time to let you decide. if you weren't sure of their position then you should've withdrawn.

As has already been mentioned many times in this thread, most exchanges did not say what the deal was with forks in advance. Many individuals purchase bitcoin on exchanges, not send them their bitcoin for custodial purposes. As has also been stated, practically all exchanges have onerous withdrawal limits and requirements that would take weeks to withdraw coins. Many wanted to do so in advance of announced forks and could not get their coins out in time. So you are wrong on all counts. I am not saying that you are not correct in terms of any legal arguments.

[European Central Bank]

As has already been mentioned many times in this thread, most exchanges did not say what the deal was with forks in advance. Many individuals purchase bitcoin on exchanges, not send them their bitcoin for custodial purposes. As has also been stated, practically all exchanges have onerous withdrawal limits and requirements that would take weeks to withdraw coins. Many wanted to do so in advance of announced forks and could not get their coins out in time. So you are wrong on all counts. I am not saying that you are not correct in terms of any legal arguments.

i have no sympathy.

if you're unsure about their policy then remove the bitcoin. there are now so many forks there's no way they can allocate the time to keep up with them even if they were interested.

and anyone who has coins that can't be extracted over the course of a few days at the extreme maximum is a reckless fool.

you get forks if you have your private key. you do not have them in an exchange. this is crypto 101.

[pereira4]

It depends on the exchange.

If it's an US registered exchange doing all the KYC stuff then MAYBE you can get away with a class action lawsuit and try to get a case out of it.

If the jurisdiction is anywhere else then you are most likely going to lose more money in lawyers than you would get from the coins which you should have gotten out of the fork, to be honest. Not to mention by the time you get them, the price will have tanked because long term all these forks are going to 0.

So when you consider all the variables I think the best think you can do is forget it. Just treat anything Crypto as the wild wild west. Threat ALL exchanges as potential scammers (so do not give them your information, and do not give them your private keys). Keep records of your transactions in case they disappear when you want to cash out and buy a house, all information will be useful. For example, I lost my Cryptsy trading history, because they disappeared out of nowhere, and I was not able to save my .csv trading history file in my computer, I also lost a small amount of coins. Now I worried to cash out all the coins that went trough my Cryptsy account, since I lost my trading record, and who knows if they counterfeit my coins when I try to explain to them how I lost my trading record for these coins..

[Tai Chi Chain]

Some exchanges have not, and have no plans, to give access to coins from bitcoin forks. Many of them are already worth a substantial amount of money, and likely will increase in value. Is there a legal basis for suing exchanges to get access to such coins?

Since the exchanges are acting as custodial agents, they are holding bitcoin on behalf of the user, just like a brokerage does not "own" the stock but holds it on behalf of the customer. Whether or not the exchange plans on spending that bitcoin, if they do not give it to the customer they are stealing from the customer. Since coins from bitcoin forks are associated with the private keys held by the exchange, the exchange cannot argue that they did not "claim" them by taking no action, because they do own them, whether they wanted to or not.

I could imagine people pooling together to sue exchanges if this argument is viable.

I don't think anyone should be able to sue an exchange because they didn't give them "their" hardforked coins.

The thing is that, you should always have access to your private keys and never store ANYTHING on an exchange for long term(Hacks,De-listing,etc)

[ulhaq]

A investor has just sued an exchange for not getting access to forked coins:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-investor-sues-local-cryptocurrency-132024909.html