 | Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers is no longer actively retaining Bittrex victims. |
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Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers is representing those who have lost money due to Bittrex shutting down in the United States.
The cryptocurrency trading platform Bittrex shut down in the United States on April 30, 2023, citing vague cryptocurrency laws. According to a bankruptcy filing, Bittrex faces between $500 million and $1 billion in assets and liabilities.
The SEC has filed a lawsuit against Bittrex, claiming that Bittrex operated as an unregistered clearing agency, broker and exchange.
Call us today for a free consultation if you or a loved one lost money because of Bitrrex’s shutdown. We won’t charge any fee to represent you unless and until we recover your money for you.
What Happened To Bittrex?
Bittrex shut down on April 30, 2023. Richie Lai, Bittrex’s CEO and co-founder, explained that the shutdown was due to cryptocurrency laws in the United States being unclear.
Customers were no longer able to withdraw funds from the exchange after April 30.
However, a lawsuit filed by the SEC against Bittrex alleges that United States cryptocurrency laws were anything but unclear to Bittrex. The lawsuit alleges that Bittrex knew it was violating crypto laws and actively attempted to cover up the violations.
Bittrex Lawsuit Claims Exchange Knew It Was Breaking The Law, Tried To Cover It Up
A lawsuit filed by the SEC against Bittrex claims the exchange should have registered as a clearing agency, national securities exchange and broker-dealer because it was allowing securities to be bought, sold and traded through its platform. The lawsuit claims that not only did Bittrex not register like it should, but it knew it should have registered and tried to cover up the fact that it was allowing securities to be bought, sold and traded on its platform.
The lawsuit claims that Bittrex was operating as an unregistered broker by handling customer assets and funds, charging fees to do so, and soliciting possible investors. The lawsuit claims Bittrex was operating as an unregistered clearing agency by holding customer assets in wallets and settling customer transactions by crediting and debiting relevant accounts. The lawsuit claims Bittrex was operating as an unregistered exchange by acting as a marketplace which brought together sellers and buyers of crypto and executing and matching crypto orders.
The lawsuit claims that Bittrex knew that many of the crypto assets bought, sold and traded through its platform were securities, and engaged in a “problematic statement cleanup” campaign intended to hide this from regulators. The lawsuit claims this campaign was intended to remove, from statements made by the assets it made available on its platform, statements which included words and phrases which might gain the attention of regulators. The lawsuit claims Bittrex engaged in this campaign because it knew it was allowing securities to be bought, sold and traded on its platform.
The lawsuit alleges that:
- Former Bittrex CEO William Hiroaki Shihara told other co-founders of Bittrex, “the problem is that its going to be seen by the SEC as a security… its a big enough opportunity that we might want to roll the dice on the sec investigation.”
- Shihara instructed members of a Bittrex committee to review the marketing materials of crypto assets it was considering for availability on the Bittrex platform, looking for words such as “DAO, shareholder, shares, profit, dividends” which the SEC would “want to investigate.”
- Shihara told an issuer they “should not market [their token] as any kind of investment. Stick to utility token so none of us get into trouble.”
- NGC’s issuer said to Bittrex, “We have removed everything related to growth, indication as ‘investment,’ coin price or any posts in relation to projections, growths or forecasts.”
- In an email to TKN, Shihara reminded TKN’s team to “Scrub the docs of investment related terms.”
- Bittrex provided its employees a “cheat sheet” for features and statements about assets on its platform which they should seek to have scrubbed. These features and statements included tokens providing passive income and statements about predictions of prices or expectations of profit.
- Bittrex employees told an issuer team, “[O]ur attorney was a little concerned about any statements on your social media that can be related to price forecasting… we can work with you folks to clean up any statements viewed as problematic… make sure stuff like that is cleaned up.”
- A Bittrex employee told an issuer team to “remove any tweets, or retweets of items that are speculative or encouraging increasing the price of the token.”
- A Bittrex told an issuer team, “We… review social media feeds, white paper and website for problematic statements that are speculative in nature. The following are statements/comments identified by our outside counsel that they would like to see removed or cleaned up.”
The lawsuit claims that Bittrex allowed multiple crypto assets to be bought, sold and traded on its platform after those assets had already made public statements indicating that the assets were securities. The lawsuit alleges that, instead of not allowing those assets on the platform since Bittrex was not registered to allow securities to be bought, sold and traded on its platform, Bittrex instead directed those assets to “scrub” the “problematic” statements indicating that the assets were securities.
Bittrex Bankruptcy
Bittrex filed for bankruptcy on May 8, 2023. The exchange said that customer funds which weren’t withdrawn by April 30 are still secure. The exchange said that it will be decided in bankruptcy court how the remaining funds will be distributed.
Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers has helped many people recover funds from bankruptcies. Filing a claim to recover funds from a bankruptcy can be a complex process. We have the experience and expertise to do it right and make sure you recover your funds.
Call us today or text us from this page for a free consultation if you or a loved one still has funds in Bittrex which weren’t withdrawn by April 30. We can help you recover your funds. We won’t charge you any fee until and unless we recover funds for you.
How Much Do Nadrich Accident Injury Lawyers Cost?
The only fee we will ever charge you is a percentage of any money we recover for you. This fee will not be charged until we recover funds for you. We will not charge any upfront fee. You will never owe us any out-of-pocket money.
Experienced Cryptocurrency Lawyers
If you have lost money due to the shutdown of Bittrex, you need experienced, knowledgeable cryptocurrency lawyers by your side. We have been helping people recover financial compensation for their losses since 1990. We have recovered over $750,000,000 for our clients. We are representing those who have lost money due to the bad behavior of several cryptocurrency exchanges, such as FTX and Gemini Earn.
We know all of the cryptocurrency laws which are relevant in terms of recovering your funds for you. We have vast experience in helping our clients recover funds from bankruptcies such as Bittrex’s bankruptcy. We have the experience and know-how to get the job done for you and get your money back for you.
You shouldn’t have to lose your money because Bittrex behaved badly and violated securities laws. Let us help you recover the financial compensation and justice you deserve.
Call us today for a free consultation or text us from this page. You can also use the free case evaluation form on this page.
