You can say what you want about Ripple and its XRP token, but at least it’s never boring around the project. Ripple has been embroiled in a legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for some time now.
Shortly after the SEC sued Ripple in late 2022, Coinbase decided to remove XRP from its crypto exchange. Now it appears that the popular exchange platform kept tokens from an airdrop, which were intended for XRP investors, for itself and that now results in a new lawsuit
XRP investors are suing Coinbase
Not long ago, on January 9, the airdrop of the Flare Network Token (FLR) took place. This is an airdrop that was held especially among XRP token holders. Investors received one FLR in their wallet for every XRP token. Centralized exchange platforms basically have the power to decide what to do with those airdrops.
While Binance and Kraken supported the airdrop, and the tokens to XRP holders, Coinbase decided to take a different approach. They kept the tokens for themselves and possibly sold them. The XRP community is not going to leave it at that and has now launched a class action lawsuit against the listed trading platform.
A crypto company can’t steal customer funds. That’s Business Law 101. Even after FTX, some exchanges still haven’t got the message…because they weren’t being held to account. That’s over.@coinbase Return customers’ #SGB and #FLR, with damages, now. 1/2https://t.co/o5cLzyoLRc
— HODL LAW #decentralizedjustice -rough cut logo- (@hodl_law) January 16, 2023
“A crypto company cannot steal customer funds. That is the basis of corporate law. Even after FTX, some exchange platforms haven’t gotten that because they haven’t been held accountable. That is over.”
Coinbase changed its mind
It seems that Coinbase did not play it completely fair, because the exchange platform previously indicated that they would pay out the tokens. Now that is not the case and that, according to the prosecutors, causes damage in several ways. Firstly, because investors decided to buy more XRP tokens from Coinbase for this reason.
An important reason for those purchases was the FLR airdrop, which had been in the air for a while. However, due to Coinbase’s hard decision, that party is canceled and these investors therefore feel robbed.
The Good News: Class action lawsuit against Coinbase to force it to return its customers #SGB and #FLR. Please follow or check in with @hodl_law for updates. If you were a customer that didn’t get your SGB and FLR and are interested in signing up, go here: https://t.co/Zr7wmvgxof
— Fred Rispoli (@freddyriz) January 16, 2023
The aim of the lawsuit is to get the tokens to the wallets of XRP token holders as quickly as possible. After all, according to the law firm leading the case for the plaintiffs, they are the rightful owners of the flare and sonbird tokens that Coinbase now owns or may have already sold.