Australian investors adversely impacted by repeated system failures on crypto exchange Binance — and dissatisfied with offers of compensation — are considering filing a class-action lawsuit to recoup their losses, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Fast facts:
- Binance and other crypto exchanges experienced several crashes between February and May, as periods of market volatility had investors scrambling to access the platforms.
- Crypto investor Francis Kim of Melbourne began searching for other Binance users to take part in a class-action lawsuit after an outage on May 19 cost him US$181,000 but Binance offered him only US$60,000 in compensation, according to the Daily Telegraph report. Kim found 10 other Australians with combined losses of US$1.2 million, but as that amount would not justify pursuing a class action, the group is currently looking internationally for more cases.
- Australia currently does not regulate cryptocurrency exchanges, though a Senate Committee is taking submissions on ways to update Australia’s crypto regulations.
- The Australian Securities and Investments Commission told the Daily Telegraph that “investors are not protected if they suffer loss due to technical outages or system failures.”