Law 360

When FTX Trading Ltd. imploded late last year, it spurred multiple types bankruptcy filings and civil and criminal lawsuits — including several proposed class action lawsuits. And these represent just a few of the growing number of cryptocurrency related class action lawsuits. This surge in activity presents unique challenges and opportunities for the courts, attorneys, claims administrators and those who have been wronged, according to an article from Law 360.

Loree Kovach, Senior Vice President, Client Services, Class Action, Remediation, and Mass Tort, Epiq: "The situation is very different with crypto. Crypto is held in an account known as a wallet address or public key. This wallet address is public on the blockchain, along with every transaction ever conducted, but crypto owners' identity is anonymous and cannot be tied back to the wallet address. While there are ways to trace a person's identity to a wallet address, this typically involves some forensic analysis and is very costly."

Nicholas Schmidt, Client Services Manager, Class Action, Remediation, and Mass Tort, Epiq: "One potential downside, though, is the cost of fees, particularly if wallets are Ethereum addresses that involve transaction — or so-called gas — fees for every address that an NFT is airdropped to. The gas fees can vary dramatically depending on the priority rating set on the transactions, current volume of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain and time of day that airdrops are being conducted."

Read the full article here.


Contact
Carrie Trent
Epiq, Director of Communications & Public Relations
Carrie.Trent@epiqglobal.com