Chinese Crypto Investor Sues OKCoin for Withholding BCH from 2017 Hard Fork

A Chinese cryptocurrency investor is suing crypto exchange OKCoin over 38.748 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) tokens. The investor has claimed that he was barred from collecting during the Bitcoin Cash hard fork of 2017. OKCoin allegedly refused to hand over the coins, and told the man that he had failed to collect them before an undisclosed deadline had passed.

The man, who is operating under the pseudonym Feng Bin, is seeking a total of roughly $25,000 in Chinese yuan. At press time, the BCH tokens in question were worth roughly $27,000.

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OKCoin Allegedly Invoked an Undisclosed Deadline

Chinese news source Legalweekly reported that OKCoin had announced that “if you hold bitcoins on the platform, the platform will give users Bitcoin cash equal ownership in accordance with the user” on August 1, 2017.

In spite of this, when Feng attempted to claim his BCH by pressing the “claim button” that the exchange had provided, it had disappeared. Upon contacting the exchange, Feng was told that “the claim ‘button’ was a program that automatically executed BCH input to user’s account.”

The OKCoin logo.

“You cannot claim BCH anymore as the program has been removed from our platform. If you didn’t withdraw it at that time, it will be impossible to make later withdrawal,” the exchange allegedly said.

OKCoin Argues that Feng’s Lack of Trading Activity was “Abnormal”

Feng argued that the statement was unfair, as he had not been informed that there was a time limit on collecting his BCH. “I have been paying attention to the announcement of the Okcoin currency release. In all the announcements, there is no declaration of the deadline for receipt and the removal of the program,” he said.

OKCoin’s arguments against Mr. Feng’s allegations include a claim that the lack of trading activity in his account was “abnormal” with regards to the market conditions throughout 2017.

Legalweekly has described the case as the first Chinese lawsuit involving the BCH hard fork.