Coinbase is a popular and leading crypto exchnages based in the US. The exchange has recently delisted Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC). BiT Global Digital has filed a lawsuit against coinbase for wBTC delisting and they are claiming that this was done by coinbase deliberately. Coinbase has its own BTC product called cbBTC and its a kind of rival product so they have delisted wBTC so that they can get more traction on cbBTC.
According to BiT Global, this has damaged people financially and turned out to be a financial loss. They have accused Coinbase of following unfair practices and filed a suit for $1B. The coinbase announced the delisting on November 19 and shared the reason that its a standard practice followed by the exchange.
BiT Global alleges that Coinbase’s delisting of wBTC caused significant financial losses and damaged consumer confidence in the token.
Its not expected from a reputed exchange to follow any practice that can cause losses and if its required then there has to be a valid reason and proper time should also be taken. This is required to ensure that such change does not impact and people can plan accordingly.
Filed on December 13 in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accuses Coinbase of anti-competitive practices under the Sherman Act.
People expect big exchanges to follow the best practices that are in the best interest of the exchange as well as for the users but sometimes these centralised exchanges work differently and they try to gain the benefits in the market situation. Now let's wait and watch what Coinbase says after the response to this lawsuit and if the authorities are going to penalise Coinbase for doing this unfair practice on their platform. Its sad that whoever invested in wBTC has to go through and hope to get some solution for this problem.