Cryptopia Liquidator Says Users Can Now Recover Funds

In September, the liquidator of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Grant Thompson said users who have their funds in the crypto exchange will be allowed to recover their funds at the end of the year. Yesterday, the accountancy firm revealed the room has been created for users to start reclaiming their funds.

It said a claims portal has been open to allow those affected by the closure of the exchange to repatriate their funds before the final liquidation process is complete.

During the exchange’s hack last year, all user accounts were frozen after more than $17 million in ERC-20 tokens and Ether were stolen from the hack.

Grant Thompson revealed that users will not be informed at once because of the sheer volume of emails that may cause traffic issues. According to the accounting firm, it will be informing users in batches throughout the week.

There are about 960,000 affected customers of the defunct exchange who need to be informed. However, the users are required to provide certain details of their accounts before they are successfully registered. They are asked to provide certain account details to make sure only verified users of the exchange’s platform are allowed to make claims. As Grant reported previously, the process is important to maintain the law guiding repatriation of assets in New Zealand.

In April this year, the High Court in Christchurch ruled that users of the defunct exchange are entitled to their funds held in the Cryptopia accounts. The Court classified those assets as properties.

Shareholders Also Want To Reclaim Funds

After the ruling Grant Thompson started the process of initiating the claims, as it launched the Cryptopia claims portal.

When Cryptopia was liquidated, it had about US$100 million worth of cryptocurrencies. However, the claim process does not indicate the percentage of funds users are likely going to receive in the claim. Apart from the users, 90 shareholders, 37 creditors, and a large number of account holders are also seeking to reclaim their funds from the company’s remaining assets.

After the hacking incident last year, users of the exchange who keep accounts with the exchange filed a lawsuit which they won. Based on the law, their funds will be first settled before that of creditors. With the launch of the claims portal, the users are even closer to reclaim their funds, although it’s not certain whether they can recover all funds following the exchange’s liquidation.