[2018-08-02] The First Lawsuit in China Initiated By a Bitcoin Fork

[lylian]

A crypto investor recently brought a lawsuit against the crypto exchange OKCoin for a bitcoin fork in the Beijing court. It is the first lawsuit related to a bitcoin fork in the country, according to Legal Weekly.

The plaintiff claimed the equivalent amount of bitcoin cash (BCH) that forked from the 38.748 bitcoins (BTC) he deposited in OKCoin was invalid for the reason that the forked coins were not claimed in time; as a result, he lost the timing to cash out for BCH at highs. Therefore he requested OKCoin to compensate for the loss of 169,969.22 yuan (US$25,000) in total.

As public information indicates, on 1 August 2017, a hard fork of bitcoin was created, and there came bitcoin cash. As a result, the bitcoin ledger and the cryptocurrency split in two – Bitcoin and bitcoin cash. As promised in the announcement of OKCoin, at the time of the fork users holding bitcoin in the platform was also in possession of the same amount of bitcoin cash units.

However, the plaintiff named Feng Bin (not his real name) who should have owned 38.748 BCH on OKCoin failed to have the “pennies from heaven”...

http://news.8btc.com/who-moved-my-38-748-bch-the-first-lawsuit-in-china-initiated-by-a-bitcoin-fork

[InvoKing]

This guy will likely got nothing against okcoin, he needs to prove his ownership of the coins at the moment of the fork which isn't that hard, but the difficult part is to convince the court to accept refunding you while you use an exchange and you have only Bitcoin deposits...

[Slow death]

but the difficult part is to convince the court to accept refunding you while you use an exchange and you have only Bitcoin deposits...

I want to believe that the judge will consult with some programming expert and that he can explain all the technical aspects of this issue, and probably the judge will decide in favor of the  crypto investor... because okcoin assured its customers that they would have BCH, if okcoin had not promised anything, had not guaranteed anything then that crypto investor would have no reason to complain in court.

As public information indicates, on 1 August 2017, a hard fork of bitcoin was created, and there came bitcoin cash. As a result, the bitcoin ledger and the cryptocurrency split in two – Bitcoin and bitcoin cash. As promised in the announcement of OKCoin, at the time of the fork users holding bitcoin in the platform was also in possession of the same amount of bitcoin cash units.

it is enough that the judge see this part and realize how the hard fork works that at the same time will declare the crypto investor as the one who should receive his BCH. Now there's another point here. If the  crypto investor had for example 1000 BTC it should get 1000 BCH, I do not see why the crypto investor asks for $ 25000 of compensation for his losses, he is converting crypto to fiat something I doubt the court will do ... because the Okcoin's promise was 1: 1. but that is my opinion, I am not a judge or a lawyer.

[buwaytress]

Not sure I see anything in this:

1. The promise was for the amount of Bcash, not for the time it would be delivered, or for the value if would be delivered for.
2. The user never owned the Bitcoin he had on the exchange. As soon as he deposited them there, the coins belonged to the exchange. The exchange only legally owed him a promise to give him back the Bitcoin he had on his account.

You want your forkcoins so badly, you better make damn sure you own your own Bitcoin.