- A Manhattan law firm has attempted to serve with an NFT to initiate a $440 million lawsuit
- The methodology follows a ruling in a UK court that litigants may serve individuals via NFT airdrops when traditional methods fail
- The case alleges a crypto‑based Ponzi scheme run by the defendant that siphoned roughly $440 million from investors
Manhattan law firm Burwick Law has filed for permission to serve the alleged operator of a $440 million Ponzi scheme via an NFT after failing to locate him by conventional means. Burwick Law claims that its client was a victim of British former pub owner Peter McInnes, whom it accuses of defrauding investors out of nearly half a billion dollars. The request is the first such case in the U.S., but there is precedent in the UK, where the UK High Court ruled in 2022 that NFTs can validly serve court papers when a defendant is otherwise unreachable.
An Unwanted Airdrop
According to the complaint, McInnes—once a UK pub landlord and now a Dubai-based property developer—ran two interconnected schemes: TradeAI (later rebranded as Stakx) and UA3. Investors were allegedly lured with promises of high-yield crypto pools but ended up locked out of their funds, with the suit claiming that McInnes even posted videos from a luxurious Costa Rican mansion, supposedly recovering from a heart attack, to bolster credibility.
Collectively, the schemes are said to have defrauded victims of approximately $440 million, but McInnes has so far proved hard to track down at any known physical address. However, Burwick Law has traced a wallet tied to Waste Consul LTD, a company allegedly controlled by him and has sought court approval to airdrop a “service NFT” that embeds hyperlinks to the complaint and serves as a legal notice when sent to that wallet.
Precedent…of Sorts
While there is no precedent for this method of service in the U.S., the UK courts have already ruled on the matter. In July 2022, the High Court of England and Wales approved the use of NFTs to serve proceedings on “persons unknown” linked to fraudulent online brokerage wallets, allowing the complaint to be airdropped directly into those wallets.
Since then, similar rulings, including a 2023 decision permitting exclusive service via NFT, have affirmed the method’s legal validity in the UK. These rulings help form Burwick’s application, albeit they hail from a foreign nation, showing courts’ increasing comfort with blockchain’s immutable, verifiable delivery capabilities, especially when defendants hide behind untraceable digital wallets.
As digital assets proliferate and anonymous wallet holders complicate legal recourse, Burwick Law’s motion could cement NFTs as an accepted method of service when all else fails, paving the way for future litigation in the crypto sphere, especially if wallets become legally tied to identity.
