CoinLab Reportedly Increases Mt. Gox Claim
CoinLab, which is known for being a Bitcoin business incubator, is believed to have just filed a $16 billion claim against Mt. Gox. The latter, in particular, is the now-defunct digital currency exchange. The report came after an alleged photo of the supposed filing document surfaced online.
Alleged Increase In Claim
In March of last year, the former business partner of the aforementioned exchange decided to sue the company for at least $75 million. The decision to do so came after a claim of breach of contract. The contract suggested that CoinLab must take over the American clients of Mt. Gox, but this never happened.
Some people in the digital currency space have reportedly seen the supposed increase in the BTC business incubator’s claim. Apparently, most of them suggest that the company’s claim is quite unjustified. Peter Vessenes was recently tagged on a tweet on Twitter by a certain user. Vessenes is basically the co-founder of CoinLab and was asked if he submitted the supposed $16 billion claim. The user is simply referring to the Mt. Gox Civil Rehabilitation.
The user then reiterated his own question, but now more focused on the surprising size of the company’s claim. He called it “0.3 percent of Japanese GDP.”
The Twitter user then concluded that CoinLab did this on purpose. By doing so, according to him, the company would not have troubles blocking any creditor payouts. He then begged the question, “Care to clarify how this claim is justified?”
Delaying Payouts
According to various sources, the lawsuit is quite complex in one way or another. For starters, there is a possibility it is meant to delay payouts to users that had lost funds following the collapse of the exchange. It should be noted that last fall, the CEO of Kraken named Jesse Powell declared that he was very “disappointed” upon hearing about the lawsuit. He believes that this is the culprit for holding up payouts.
Powell even went to say that any judgment thrown at CoinLab should be treated on par with the depositor victims. He said that people are having a hard time trying to understand the $75 million claim. This is most especially that the common view is that the company never performed. What is more is that it actually owes the $5 million back to Mt. Gox.
For the Kraken executive, the deal should have been carried out. And by doing so, CoinLab might just be on the hook simply due to the shortage of client deposits.