CCTV Cover Feature Blockchain
Asia blockchain week 2018
T Jane Lo APSM Correspondant
40 | Asia Pacific Security Magazine
he first lawsuit involving crypto in Singapore was filed by UK registered business B2C2 against Singapore registered Bitcoin exchange operator Quoine, relating to Bitcoin/Ethereum trades transacted on 19th April 2017. The trade involved B2C2 paying 309.2518 Ethereum to Quonine, in return for 3,092.517116 Bitcoins. This was an inflated level at ~250 times the average market price that day. Despite the abnormal level, the order was filled, and the Bitcoins were credited to B2C2’s account. But the credit was reversed the next day by Quoine asserting it was "mostly trades with huge mark-up over fair global market price". B2C2 sued, claiming that the proceeds were "misappropriated" from the account without authorisation. Today’s valuation of this dispute is more than double the US$3.78 million on trade date - not an insignificant factor in the litigation. Valuation collapses also triggered lawsuits. Two examples were LongFin whose investors sued after disclosures of
material control weaknesses caused a 80% price plunge, and Bitconnect whose investors were guaranteed monthly returns of up to 40% only to see their holdings plunged a month later. Lawsuits brought by disgruntled investors were also lodged against those for misleading statements. Paragon, whose $70 million fund raising to address logistic challenges in the cannabis industry was charged by investors as “simply a method for Defendants to raise capital in order to purchase real estate investments”. Tezos, which raised a high-profile sum of $232 million, was sued by investors citing violations of securities law, when attempted embezzlement allegations surfaced. Criminal lawsuits were also pursued by prosecutors. The most infamous was Mt Gox, which alleged in February 2014 that almost 750,000 of its customers' Bitcoins were hacked. The incident led to its collapse and the arrest of its CEO. There were also disputes settled through “forks” [1] without involving the courtrooms. Examples included the BitCoin Cash 2017 split from the main Bitcoin chain to settle a dispute to speed up transaction processing; the
