The exchange’s “rights protection” turned into “jumping into the sea”. Du Jun angrily denounced each side’s insistence. How to break the deadlock?

On the 23rd, rights defenders from Huobi and OK went to Hainan and Beijing to protest respectively. Subsequently, OK and Huobi issued statements respectively. OK admitted that there was a short-term freeze on March 12, and said that the platform would give appropriate compensation for the inability to trade due to the platform's own reasons. Huobi said that there was no technical failure, only a short transfer delay, and if there were any problems, they could send an email to report it and they would give a reply.

The exchange's statement did not satisfy the rights defenders. Afterwards, the rights defenders appeared on a bridge in Hainan to protest. The leaked video showed that there was a certain conflict between the rights defenders and the police. The rights defenders believed that the police had not given any basis for filing a case or not.

Wu said that the blockchain believes that it is difficult to break the deadlock as both sides stick to their own opinions, but it is not appropriate to take extreme actions to protect rights. For rights defenders, the key is to collect relevant evidence of technical failures of exchanges and use legal channels to deal with them. For exchanges, they should better meet the reasonable needs of users and remind users of risks.

Du Jun, one of the founders of Huobi.com, called the rights defenders "professional extras" in his circle of friends. Huobi also said in a statement that among the dozen rights defenders who arrived at the Huobi Building on March 23, only four were users of Huobi Global Station and had traded on March 12, and most of the others did not even have Huobi accounts.

Huobi also stated that the extremely improper claims made under the pretext of technical failure have seriously affected social order and damaged our company's brand and reputation. We have reported the incident to the judicial authorities at the scene and will pursue their legal responsibility in accordance with the law.

The rights defenders were naturally very dissatisfied with such statements. Wu said that most of them did not make a fuss about the downtime, but emphasized their own losses from liquidation, and tried to negotiate with the exchange to recover the losses caused by liquidation based on the central bank's determination that virtual currency transactions were illegal.

Huo Yijie, a former prosecutor and lawyer, told Wu Blockchain that general Internet companies involved in network operations must fulfill their security protection obligations in accordance with the Cybersecurity Law and other relevant laws and regulations to ensure that the network is not interfered with or damaged. In the event of a sudden safety incident, remedial measures should be taken immediately and reported to the regulatory authorities in a timely manner, otherwise there will be risks such as administrative penalties.

If the rights defender has evidence of the downtime, he can directly file a claim against the exchange. Huo said that when downtime occurs, it is necessary to distinguish the causes, internal or external, human or natural. Different causes lead to different consequences. If there is a relevant service agreement between the network operator and the user, and relevant downtime compensation matters are agreed upon, the claim can be directly referred to.

If it is a simple investment loss, it is unlikely to be recovered through the public security, procuratorial and judicial systems. In 2017, there were many cases of failed virtual currency investments in Beijing and Jiangsu Province, and the courts rejected the plaintiffs' lawsuits on the grounds that "the transaction parties bear their own risks."

Lawyer Huo also believes that some anxious investors will choose to gather in groups to defend their rights, but they must consider the risks of subsequent rights protection. Once there are radical behaviors in the process of rights protection, or if public order is disrupted, it is very easy to cause legal risks, which is not worth the loss.

For exchanges, since their main bodies have already moved overseas, it is almost impossible to set a precedent for those who put pressure on them in the face of extreme rights protection behavior, otherwise there will be a steady stream of subsequent rights defenders. For them, the worst outcome is to move all operations overseas like Binance, which will have little impact on their business except for rising costs.

Regarding the possible emergence of professional rights defenders, professional legal experts said that users who have truly suffered losses need to carefully consider cooperating with them, otherwise it will affect the normal claims process, because professional complainants are currently also the targets of severe crackdowns by the central bank, and major exchanges are also collecting evidence on this.

Recently, the Shanghai headquarters of the People's Bank of China assisted the Shanghai Public Security Bureau in cracking down on a criminal gang of professional complainants. The gang extorted money under the guise of "protecting rights". The gang was also suspected of other illegal and criminal acts such as infringing citizens' personal information. All 12 suspects have been detained in accordance with the law. Relevant officials of the Shanghai headquarters of the People's Bank of China reminded that in order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of themselves and others, consumers should reflect their demands through legal and reasonable channels, and should not take irrational means such as repeated malicious complaints to protect their rights.