New court documents show that BiT Global, a custodian of Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), is suing Coinbase after the top US-based crypto exchange delisted wBTC in November.
In a new complaint, BiT Global accuses Coinbase of using wBTC – the tokenized representation of Bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain – as a “cash grab” before ultimately delisting it and replacing it with its own version of the asset.
[adinserter block="1"]“In the case of wrapped Bitcoin, Coinbase viewed it as just another cash grab. It saw a competitor, wBTC, that had something it wanted: an innovative product that released value inherent in Bitcoin and let users utilize that value in bold new ways…
Coinbase decided it would take what it wanted. Once the value in wBTC had been demonstrated, Coinbase changed the rules, delisting wBTC from its platform so that it could no longer be traded on the Coinbase platform – and it did so shortly after launching its own knock-off clone called cbBTC.”
According to BiT Global, similar actions were taken against competitors years ago by tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook. BiT Global goes on to say that Coinbase’s actions were in violation of US commerce laws as they were an attempt to monopolize the market and intentionally debase wBTC.
“Coinbase engaged in predatory or anticompetitive conduct to accomplish [its] monopolization.
It has used its dominant power in one market – the market for centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States – to attempt to exclude wBTC from that market. It has made false statements about the reasons for its delisting (with implications that the delisting was based on an in-depth review of wBTC using neutral standards, and implications that Coinbase possesses damaging information about wBTC which caused the delisting).
These activities have created ‘FUD’ (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding wBTC and were part of an intentional strategy to do so.”
On November 20th, Coinbase announced that after its most recent review, it would suspend trading for WBTC on December 19th.
Coinbase first announced Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC) – its own wrapped version of the crypto king – earlier this year.
wBTC is trading for $101,122 at time of writing, a 1.7% increase during the last 24 hours.
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