Grant Thompson, the liquidator for Cryptopia, the defunct crypto exchange, announced in September that users who had deposited their funds with the crypto exchange would be able to recover them near the end of the year. Now, the accountancy firm has announced that they have created enough room for the users to be able to withdraw their funds. The company announced that a claims portal had been introduced for allowing those who had been affected by the crypto exchange’s closure to repatriate their funds before they complete the final liquidation process. Last year, when the exchange was hacked, they had decided to freeze all user accounts.
This was after the hack resulted in the theft of nearly $17 million in Ether and ERC-20 tokens. According to Grant Thompson, they will not inform users at once because the huge number of emails could result in traffic issues. The account firm stated that they will be informing the users throughout the week in batches. The customers affected by the defunct exchange are around 960,000 and they all need to be informed. However, the users will only be registered successfully if they are able to provide certain details of their account. The purpose of asking for these certain account details is to ensure that only verified users of the exchange are able to put their claims through.
According to Grant Thompson, it is important to follow this process in accordance with the law in New Zealand regarding repatriation of assets. This year in April, it was ruled by the High Court in Christchurch that users of the now-defunct crypto exchange were entitled to get the funds that they had deposited in their Cryptopia accounts. These assets had been classified as properties by the Court. Once the ruling was made, the accountancy firm had no other choice but to begin the process of initiating the claims process and is now launching the Cryptopia claims portal.
At the time of liquidation, the total value of cryptocurrencies belonging to the crypto exchange had been around $100 million. Nevertheless, the claims process has not highlighted the exact percentage of funds that users can expect to receive when they make the claim. In addition, it is not just the users of the crypto exchange who want their funds. There are also 37 creditors, 90 shareholders, and a number of account holders who are also trying to reclaim their funds from the remaining assets of the company.
Last year, after the hacking incident had occurred, users of the crypto exchange who had maintained their accounts with it had filed a lawsuit against Cryptopia and had won. According to the law, they are entitled to receive their funds before the company’s creditors can be paid. Now that the launch of the claims portal has been announced by Grant Thompson, the users are closer than ever to reclaiming their funds. But, it should be noted that it is not certain whether they will be able to recover all their funds after the liquidation of the exchange.
