Lawsuit Filed Against Roger Ver, Bitmain, Kraken Over ‘Hijacking Bitcoin Cash Network’

On December 6, 2018, publicly listed American internet services company UnitedCorp filed a lawsuit against Bitcoin Cash proponent Roger Ver, the founder of bitcoin.com, bitcoin mining giant Bitmain and cryptocurrency exchange Kraken for allegedly hijacking Bitcoin Cash network unlawfully for personal benefit.

Questionable Action or Not?

United American Corp has filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging the trio to colluded and hijack the Bitcoin cash network after November 15, 2018. The company has touted the action as an “effort to centralize the network” which is against the principles and protocol of bitcoin.

The lawsuit asserted it as a “well-planned scheme to take control of the Bitcoin Cash network for personal gain and which caused a global capitalization meltdown of the Bitcoin Cash network at the expense of others.”

The lawsuit requests the court to provide injunctive relief to the aggrieved parties (which includes United Corps) and to prevent the defendants from continuing with their ongoing activities and effectively ban them from carrying out any future illicit activity.

So far, no date has been announced for a trial.

Lead up to the Lawsuit

Recently, one of the most important and divisive hard forks took place which resulted in a split in the bitcoin cash community. On November 15, 2018, Bitcoin Cash split into two: Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHABC) which was supported by Ver, and Bitcoin Cash Satoshi Vision (BCHSV) which was supported by Craig Wright, who claims to be Satoshi Nakomoto.

Before the hard fork, Ver and Wright had a very public, brutal spat in which Ver read out a letter that he received from the latter, in a YouTube video. In the letter, Wright had threatened Ver about driving the price of “bitcoin cash to zero with two years of no trading.”

The letter concluded with Wright reiterating that he was indeed Satoshi – the actual creator of Bitcoin and Ver could have had proof if he chose to.

UnitedCorp further alleged that after the hard fork, once the Bitcoin ABC rule set was installed in place, it became the dominant chain and the rented hashing was withdrawn which contributed nothing to the original Bitcoin Cash network.

It also stated that the then useless computational hashing power that was withdrawn after the network upgrade, was put in place, right before the network upgrade for the only purpose of keeping an artificially longer chain, amounted to human manipulation.

While Bitmain and Roger Ver’s roles in the mess are clear, it is unclear, exactly how Kraken was implicated in the lawsuit. As far as the exchange is concerned, it went above and beyond, warning its investors against Bitcoin Cash SV. It can be accused of being bipartisan; however, that hardly warrants a lawsuit in any case.

Are Roger Ver and Bitmain’s action questionable? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.