- A class action lawsuit has been filed against four exchanges over the delisting of BSV in 2019
- BSV Claims Limited says BSV buyers lost £9.9 billion when Binance, Kraken, Shapeshift and Bittylicious removed the token
- The exchanges ditched the coin when Craig Wright began his lawsuit campaign
A class action lawsuit has been filed against four exchanges for the delisting of the BSV token, three years after it took place. The lawsuit, which has been filed by a new entity BSV Claims Limited, has been in the works for a few weeks and claims that BSV holders around the world were financially damaged when the exchanges delisted the token following its founding father, Craig Wright’s, SLAPP lawsuit antics against several people in the crypto space. These holders are now seeking compensation for their losses.
Exchange Delistings Damaged Holders, Lawsuit Claims
The BSV token has not enjoyed a particularly healthy price action compared to the coin it was supposed to overtake when it launched in late 2018, Bitcoin:
Given this paltry performance, it’s understandable then that the BSV crowd will want to get some money back. However, the success of any such claim relies on its merits, and the claim made by BSV Claims Limited is quite startling – that quite apart from any lack of inherent value, the reason the BSV token has been tanking in value is due to it being taken off four exchanges three years ago – namely Binance, Kraken, Shapeshift and Bittylicious.
To recap, Craig Wright began a lawsuit spree in 2019 that saw him issuing legal action against several people who called him a fraud for not being Satoshi Nakamoto, including Hodlonaut, Adam Back, Peter McCormack, and Vitalik Buterin. Incidentally, the cases against Back and Buterin were dropped and Wright this week ‘won’ a £1 payout against McCormack and a tongue-lashing from the judge over lying throughout the case.
Several exchange operators took umbrage at his actions, including Changpeng Zhao (Binance), Jesse Powell (Kraken) and Erik Voorhees (Shapeshift). They all delisted the BSV token based on their interpretation of Wright’s actions, which, as the owners of private entities, they are completely entitled to do.
However, this action led the BSV camp to decry the actions of a ‘cryptocurrency exchange cabal’, which has led, ultimately, to BSV Claims Limited claiming that these delistings harmed UK holders, and continues to to this day, regardless of the fact they can still buy and sell the coin at over 60 exchanges.
£9.9 Billion in Damages Sought
BSV Claims Limited is suggesting that UK BSV buyers lost out to the tune of £9.9 billion because of the exchange’s actions, with claimants receiving a whopping £133 – less than 0.0000013% of the figure claimed. Where the rest of the money will go is hardly a mystery – the lawsuit is being funded by BSV and Craig Wright bankroller Calvin Ayre, who has been shelling out for Wright’s court cases and BSV propaganda since 2017, and has racked up huge losses doing so.
The company paying for this claim, Softwhale Holdings Ltd, is registered in Antigua, where Ayre lives and conducts all his business affairs. It is a racing certainty therefore that he is backing this financially and wants a huge cut of any award.
Wright himself has been threatening “bucket shop” exchanges for months, claiming he will shut them down and have their CEOs imprisoned, and has already announced separate legal action against Kraken and Coinbase, although it isn’t clear if anything has actually been filed in this case yet.
