Nearly 700,000 Bitcoins were stolen from a man’s account without him receiving any notification

Mr. Li sued Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of the www.BTC100.com platform, for 697,760 yuan because 56,000 units of Bitcoin in his virtual currency trading account were "stolen" by others without receiving any verification code or prompt . He believed that the trading platform was at fault for failing to fulfill its obligation to ensure the safety of funds. A Beijing News reporter learned yesterday that Chaoyang Court has accepted the case.

The total loss from theft was 697,760 yuan

Mr. Li claimed that on December 18, 2015, I registered an account on the virtual currency trading platform www.BTC100.com operated by Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd. After passing the identity verification, I signed the "Bit 100 Service Agreement" with the company on the website.

After the agreement was signed, I transferred money to the designated account of the website through online banking, and recharged the above account in total of 510,000 yuan, and purchased 56,515.28 units of GGP (full name Global General Point, translated as "global general win-win points", a virtual asset) on the platform.

Since January 19 this year , I have received verification code text messages and voice prompt calls on the mobile phone linked to the website many times. The verification messages all ended with the prompt "If it is not operated by me, you can ignore it." I followed the prompt and ignored the above messages and calls.

On the afternoon of January 25, I suddenly discovered that 56,000 units of GGP in my account were transferred away by someone else using a virtual address at 13:20 on the 24th. The price at the time of transfer was 12.46 yuan/GGP, with a total loss of 697,760 yuan.

No verification prompt was received when the theft occurred

According to Mr. Li, during the above transaction, his bound mobile phone never received any verification code or voice prompt. After discovering that GGP was transferred, he immediately called the platform customer service number, but no one answered. He had no choice but to contact the platform customer service through the QQ public account, and the other party said that it needed to be checked by technology. It was not until 18:00 the next day that the platform customer service sent an explanation through QQ, but did not give any solution.

Mr. Li later reported the case to the public security authorities. On January 28, Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd. issued a "certificate" stating that the 56,000 GGP in Mr. Li's account were transferred to the account of a newly registered user "Liu Moumou" on the trading platform. Later, the user withdrew the funds by purchasing BTC (Bitcoin) and LTC (Litecoin) on the site.

Mr. Li said that he had always been very cautious in his operations and had never logged into his account on a public computer, nor had he logged into unknown websites, clicked on unknown information, or told or disclosed his account password to others. He was not at fault for the account being stolen.

Mr. Li believed that he had established a contractual relationship with Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd. by registering an account on the website and signing an electronic agreement. As the operator of the virtual currency trading platform, the company had a contractual obligation to ensure the safety of his funds. Although Mr. Li had been keeping his username and password properly, his username and password were stolen by others, and the verification code bound to his mobile phone was also intercepted, resulting in property damage, indicating that the company had serious loopholes in rule design and technical protection.

The registration information of the stolen account is false

Mr. Li said that he had received verification codes and voice prompts from Beijing landline numbers since January 19, indicating that criminals had begun to prepare to steal property. If the company had clearly indicated the risk of accounts not operated by him in the verification information, he might have checked the account as soon as possible and taken countermeasures such as changing passwords, canceling transactions, and contacting the platform to avoid losses. However, the company repeatedly reminded him to "ignore it", and he did not respond based on his trust in the platform. After this incident, he found that the company had changed the prompt content to "If it is not operated by me, your account may be at risk. Please log in and check as soon as possible", which shows that the company has admitted that the prompt content is inappropriate. The company's failure to make effective prompts is a serious regulatory negligence and directly led to property losses. Mr. Li said that Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd. found that the account that stole Bitcoin was a newly registered account, the registration information of which was false, and the account only used Google Verification as a security verification method, without identity information and no mobile phone number bound. At the same time, the company also discovered a suspicious account through technical means and determined that the account and the stolen account were owned by the same person. In this regard, Mr. Li believes that the company failed to fulfill its obligation to substantively verify and review the user's identity, and caused the thief to register multiple accounts on the website at the same time, which also constituted serious negligence.

In summary, Mr. Li sued Zhengzhou Bit Technology Co., Ltd. to the court, demanding it to bear liability for compensation for losses and claiming 697,760 yuan.

It is reported that Chaoyang Court has officially accepted the case and the case is currently under further trial.