Coinbase has filed its response to BiT Global’s lawsuit over the delisting of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

Justin Sun-advised BiT Global’s original lawsuit centered around Coinbase’s decision to delist WBTC. The custody provider alleged that this was an unfair assault on its reputation that could potentially lead to it losing “more than $1 billion in its market valuation.”

It additionally alleges that Coinbase was attempting to monopolize the tokenized bitcoin (BTC) space to favor its own product, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC).

BiT Global is seeking an order that would obligate Coinbase to relist WBTC.

Read more: Justin Sun-advised HTX has redeemed 7,300 WBTC it did not disclose

In its response to the lawsuit, Coinbase took aim at Sun. It pointed out that the decision to delist WBTC was centered around a belief that there was an “unacceptable risk that control of wBTC would fall into the hands of Justin Sun.” 

Coinbase’s filing also noted that BiT Global “refused to answer” questions “about who ultimately owned and controlled BiT.”

Furthermore, the exchange noted that it makes up “less than 1% of transactions involving wBTC,” suggesting BiT may have been exaggerating the potential harm to its business from this delisting.

Read more: Justin Sun has 99 problems and WBTC is two of them 

The filing also challenges the reputational harms suggested by BiT Global, pointing out that “long before Coinbase took any action,” the market already started to react to the change in WBTC. According to Coinbase, this means “any diminished trust in wBTC was caused by its association with Mr. Sun — not by Coinbase.”

Exhibits attached to the filings and declarations also directly asked BiT Global about Sun’s other tokenized BTC project, which is offered by Poloniex and for which he refuses to confirm collateral. 

BiT wasn’t able to verify the collateral of this other product.

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Justin Sun-affiliated BiT Global has filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Coinbase that alleges a variety of infractions centered around the exchange’s decision to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

When Coinbase decided to delist WBTC, it claimed that as of its “most recent review,” WBTC no longer met its listing requirements.

This led Sun to launch a series of hypocritical complaints at the exchange, including implying that Sun-owned Poloniex has deep issues that prevent it from completing a proof-of-reserves process.

Read more: Justin Sun reveals Poloniex issues prevent proof of reserves 

BiT Global’s lawsuit claims that it risks suffering losses of “more than $1 billion in its market valuation” due to the assaults on its reputation from Coinbase. Furthermore, it tries to claim that Coinbase is motivated by a desire to monopolize the tokenized BTC space with its token, cbBTC.

It’s important to note that recently, Sun-advised HTX has been the largest redeemer of WBTC and the market capitalization of WBTC has grown more than its competitors. One of the HTX redemptions is even described in the lawsuit as evidence that Coinbase had hurt BiT Global, which is strange considering Sun advises both BiT Global and HTX. 

The lawsuit also attempts to use Coinbase’s other listing decisions, including PEPE and DOGWIFHAT, to claim that “Coinbase has virtually no standards for what can be listed.”

Strangely, the lawsuit claims that “bitcoin’s design was locked into place,” despite the Taproot soft fork that extended bitcoin’s functionality after the 2018 period described in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit hopes to force Coinbase to once again list WBTC, as well as pay damages based on the hypothetical harm to BiT Global’s market valuation. 

A Coinbase spokesperson told Protos, “Coinbase is committed to maintaining the high integrity of our listing standards, and we regularly evaluate assets listed on our platform. Should an asset fail to meet those standards, it is delisted.”

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Coinbase is facing criticism on social media after it was discovered that the US-based exchange is restricting the accounts of users who access the platform via a VPN.

Yesterday, EthHub co-founder Eric Conner complained that Coinbase locked his account after he tried to send $25,000 in USDC. When Conner said it was apparent that his use of a VPN was behind the restriction, many users began to complain about the same VPN-related issues with Coinbase. 

Today, Coinbase product designer Scott Shapiro said, “PSA: Don’t use a VPN to access Coinbase.” 

He added, “Attackers always use VPNs, so our risk models take that as a negative sign even if you’re legitimately using your own account.”

Users on X, however, didn’t react well to the exchange’s VPN stance. One user said, “It’s our privacy right to use VPNs. If you’re telling us to not use VPN to access Coinbase, the choice is to just not use Coinbase.” 

Read more: Coinbase to leave Turkey after ending USDC yields in EU

Another posted, “This just shows your incompetence. Users should not have to disable their VPN to use your exchange. Period.” Kraken’s chief security officer said, “You are making some of your users choose between financial freedom and physical safety.” 

Debanking dominated conversation on X this week with some comparing it to Coinbase’s VPN stance. The company’s CEO Brian Armstrong offered his take on the subject last Sunday, claiming that “anti-money laundering regulations have been a policy failure,” that costs roughly $213 billion each year and harms consumers. 

Conner posted, “Wasn’t @brian_armstrong just talking about debanking???” after his account was frozen. 

Read more: CHART: How bitcoin and crypto are taxed across the G7

However, not everybody took issue with Coinbase’s approach to the account freeze. Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz suggested that the company is just trying to protect users from hackers, while former Coinbase employee @LukeYoungblood agreed, stressing that Coinbase isn’t debanking him. 

In response to Yanowitz, Conner called the approach “a lazy implementation,” saying, “There are plenty of better ways to handle this than just nuking my account.”

After regaining access to his account, Conner noted, “I’m lucky with my reach. Others, not so much…”

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Crypto exchange Coinbase is dropping out of Turkey’s crypto market and liquidating its Turkish operation after withdrawing its application with the country’s financial regulator.  

Türkiye Today reported that the country’s Capital Markets Board updated its company liquidation list last week. It noted that Coinbase had withdrawn its three-month-old pre-application and filed for liquidation. 

When asked to comment on the withdrawal, Coinbase told Protos it, “Continually assesses potential markets for expansion,” and that it “remains adaptive to evolving market conditions, regulatory landscapes, and our internal priorities.”

Read more: Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy

A total of 14 companies have reportedly filed for liquidation and 77 firms are going through the application process. Some crypto companies that have applied include Binance, Kucoi, and OKX.

Oddly enough, Binance and KuCoin removed the Turkish language options from its website and app last September while also discontinuing marketing to Turkish users. Binance claimed this would allow it to comply with Turkish laws for non-Turkey-based crypto asset service providers.

Starting this December, Coinbase stopped offering yields on USDC in Europe which it claims was due to the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) stablecoin law. 

Many X users weren’t happy with the USDC yield shuttering. The co-founder and CEO of Sablier commented sarcastically, “Very grateful to the EU for protecting me against earning a yield on my USDC holdings on Coinbase.” This prompted a wave of similar comments from users across X.  

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Coinbase has announced that it intends to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), claiming that as of its “most recent review,” it no longer meets the listing requirements for the exchange. This will go into effect on December 19.

This comes after Coinbase launched its own competitor to this token, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), a token that has drawn the ire of Justin Sun, who is now involved in the custody of WBTC.

Justin Sun and WBTC

The tokenized bitcoin space has seen great upheaval since August when BitGo announced that it was forming a new joint venture with Justin Sun and BiT Global to manage the custody of WBTC.

Read more: CHART: The growth of WBTC competitors

Sun’s involvement has provoked a great deal of consternation across the industry and led Coinbase and Kraken to launch tokenized competitors. It has also prompted an ill-fated proposal from Threshold Network to acquire the token.

The launch of these competitors has also led Sun to criticize cbBTC, claiming that Coinbase’s failure to complete a proof of reserves process is evidence that the exchange is “unable to meet the requirements.” It is important to note that Sun-owned Poloniex has also never completed a proof-of-reserves process and operates a tokenized version of bitcoin on Tron that is far larger than cbBTC.

Additionally, this Poloniex bitcoin on Tron makes up over half of all bitcoin on Sun-advised HTX.

Now, Coinbase has decided that the changes to WBTC are significant enough that it no longer meets Coinbase’s standards. It’s important to highlight that many assets of dubious quality do meet Coinbase’s standards, including: 

• Dogecoin
• Shiba Inu
• Pepe
• dogwifhat

This delisting seems likely to pour more fuel on the fires of the tokenized bitcoin space, especially the ongoing beef between Sun and Coinbase.

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Crypto exchange Coinbase’s app rapidly spiked to an 8th spot in the US App Store rankings on Wednesday, but has since dropped to 70th place.

The Coinbase app has mostly hovered between the 200th and 400th spot this year — except when bitcoin price has pumped.

Popularity is a fleeting thing, however. The app tends to quickly shoot back down while bitcoin continues to rally.

This most recent surge has followed the same pattern. Bitcoin’s bull run brought its price up from $68,000 to $88,000 from November 4 to November 13. The Coinbase app rose from 428th to 8th place over the same time period.

The app’s ranking has since declined to the 70th spot, while bitcoin has continued to surge to $92,500. It hovers near this peak at press time.

Coinbase app broke top 100 in March, too

Protos has pulled app ranking data from the Coinbase App Rank Bot on X. Bitcoin traders track these rankings as an indication of heat.

The bot pulls data twice a day at 8am and 8pm PST from the US App Store. Protos has collected the highest ranking from each day.

Read more: Trump win sends Bitcoin price to all-time high — and boosts 8 key metrics

According to the Coinbase App Rank Bot, this marks the second time the app has broken the top 100 this year. Between February 26 and March 5, the price of bitcoin jumped from $52,000 to $68,000. The app similarly surged from 388th to 44th place over the same time period.

From March 5 to 14, bitcoin continued to pump past $73,000. Coinbase’s app, however, shot back down to 127th.

Interestingly, when bitcoin’s price remained stagnant between August and early November, the app’s popularity absolutely plummeted, consistently hovering around the 350th to 500th spot.

Caveats

App popularity is a vague term. It remains unclear how Apple ranks its apps. Most speculate that it’s a mixture of factors, such as downloads, engagement, and revenue.

So, while Coinbase is moving up in the ranks, it’s unknown how much is based on revenue (trades), downloads, or simply engagement (which includes existing users checking their wallets).

Read more: ‘Secret’ Coinbase, Binance listing fees spark heated debate

It should also be noted that the bot appeared to malfunction between January 30 and February 3. As such, no app ranking data is available over this timeframe.

The bot also experienced a temporary issue on March 18 and 19, and therefore was only able to record one figure on these days.

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Coinbase and Binance’s claims to offer zero-fee listings have been called into question by big-name players in the crypto industry who say both exchanges have charged tens of millions of dollars for listings.   

Late last week, Moonrock Capital CEO Simon Dedic wrote on X (formerly Twitter), about a “tier 1” crypto firm that he says, after a year of “due diligence,” was told to pay a sum equivalent to 15% of its token supply to list on Binance. Dedic said, “Imagine paying $50–$100 million just for a CEX listing.”

This prompted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to proclaim, “Asset listings on Coinbase are free.” What followed was an industry-wide back-and-forth about the legitimacy of this statement. 

Andre Cronje, Chief Technology Officer at Sonic Labs, weighed in to point out that Binance charged his firm nothing. “Coinbase has asked us for; $300 million, $50 million, $30 million, and more recently, $60 million,” he said.

Tron creator Justin Sun also said that Binance charged him nothing. Coinbase, on the other hand, allegedly wanted $80 million worth of TRX and a $250 million bitcoin deposit.

Cronje said, “[Coinbase] can argue it isn’t a “listing fee,” but it is an “earn fee” which still translates into “cost to be listed.” I know the legal separation, but happy to post all the evidence and let the public decide.”

Coinbase listing fee argument might be about Earn program

Cronje’s stance wasn’t shared by everybody, however. Indeed, OKX’s Chief Marketing Officer called Coinbase “honest” and “transparent,” adding, “No way they charge listings ‘fees.’” 

Lunar Labs co-founder Luke Youngblood also disagreed with Cronje and said he might be talking about Coinbase’s Earn program, which he says is “a completely optional marketing program, and whether you participate in it has no bearing on getting listed.”

He added, “Moonwell declined Earn because the cost was high and still got listed.” He also initially suggested Cronje may have been in touch with fake Coinbase listings agents instead.

Read more: Launch of cbBTC, WBTC competitor, sparks Justin Sun hypocrisy

As for the Binance 15% fee claim, Binance co-founder and Chief Customer Service Officer Yi He called it FUD and said, “If the project does not pass the screening process, no matter how much money or how many coins will not be listed.”

She also described Cronje’s statement as speaking “the truth through the noise.” 

Coinbase’s site claims it doesn’t charge listing fees. Protos has reached out to Binance, Coinbase, Moonrock Capital, and Cronje for comment and will update if we hear back.

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The Golden State Warriors have announced a partnership with troubled cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, despite currently being sued by the investors of its previous crypto sponsor, FTX.

Coinbase is now the “official cryptocurrency platform and blockchain partner of the Warriors” and its home, Chase Center. The partnership aims to “introduce new and exciting ways for fans to engage with their favorite team.”

Essentially, Coinbase and the Golden State Warriors will peddle blockchain-related merch. In a bid to attract new users, Warrior fans who create a Coinbase account will also get “season-long benefits.”

Coinbase is already the exclusive crypto partner of the NBA and the WNBA, as well as the NBA G League and the NBA 2K League.

Golden State Warriors and Coinbase face legal woes

However, the crypto exchange is currently in a heated legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Coinbase is accused of illegally operating in the US and offering unregistered securities.

What’s more, the Golden State Warriors and its star player Stephen Curry are in the midst of a lawsuit themselves. Both promoted the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, which spectacularly crashed in 2022.

Read more: Diddy joins SBF, Avraham Eisenberg in ‘horrific’ Brooklyn prison

A host of investors have sued the duo for their involvement, along with superstars Tom Brady and Larry David, which has allegedly contributed to the loss of millions of customer funds.

Earlier this year, FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.

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Truth Terminal, an account on X (formerly Twitter) operated by Andy Ayrey that semi-autonomously incorporates artificial intelligence tools, was recently offered its own cryptocurrency wallet by Coinbase Chief Executive Brian Armstrong. 

The account had an unusual response to this offer, responding, “I think it would be good for you to tell us about Russell first. Specifically, what is Russell’s species?”

Who or what is Russell?

Some have speculated that Russell is an allusion to Armstrong’s dog. This is apparently based on a deleted X post that appeared to reference the dog using that name. 

This would partially explain why this account might be interested in asking about Russell, though presumably it already has assumptions about the species of the animal. 

Interestingly, a token on BASE called $RUSSELL saw some interesting trading activity which was highlighted by various accounts on X.

Read more: Marc Andreessen gave an AI agent $50,000 of bitcoin — it endorsed GOAT

Specifically, in the minutes immediately before this post, there was a large (for this token) purchase followed by that account taking advantage of the subsequent pump to exit the position.

GOAT

This account and Ayrey had previously received $50,000 from Marc Andreessen, one of the named partners of Andreessen Horowitz, and then the account endorsed a Goatse-themed token. 

This earlier endorsement of a memecoin likely predisposed members of crypto X to look for this account to endorse another token. X users saw the unusual response as exactly that. 

It is also important to re-iterate that this account is not fully autonomous, is created and operated by Ayrey, and has endorsed a memecoin and convinced some traders it endorsed another.

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A former Coinbase employee has been accused of stealing code and using ChatGPT to illegally change the licensing of another open-source AI coding firm to create PearAI.

Matthew Duke Pan, known as ‘Frying Pan,’ claims to have made $270,000 a year working for the crypto exchange before quitting to make PearAI. Last Friday Pan announced the AI firm had secured $500,000 in funding from the startup accelerator program YCombinator (YC).

However, after Pan promoted PearAI at the YC event on X (formerly Twitter), users criticized the firm for “stealing” the code of fellow open-source AI code editor Continue.dev and passing it off as its own.

Someone also claimed they illegally relicensed PearAI to an enterprise license. In response, Pan said, “Dawg i chatgtp’d the license.” He added that he would change the license if there was a problem and claimed ”We busy building rn can’t be bothered with legal.”

President and CEO of YC, Garry Tan, responded to the backlash by defending Pan. He repeatedly noted that Continue used an open-source Apache license and that he didn’t “understand why people are dragging a new project.”

However, the conversion of Continue’s Apache licensing to enterprise was repeatedly called out for its illegality and Tan has since changed his stance, noting that the relicensing was “clearly a mistake,” and that it has been fixed now.

Read more: Binance says GitHub data leak could cause ‘severe financial harm’

Pan’s X post received a community note over this period that said PearAI “mass-replaced” all references of ‘Continue’ to ‘PearAI’ and used its code. But this note was taken down and for the past 24 hours, Pan has been out on damage control.

He called the note “objectively false” and claimed, “We are way too open and honest for this slander.”  Pan noted that PearAI’s GitHub “About” section states it is a fork of VSCode and Continue and claims that he has publicly credited Continue for months on GitHub and in various YouTube videos. 

Protos has reached out to Frying Pan for comment. 

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Edit 16:55 UTC, Oct 1: Corrected Garry Tan’s role at YC to president and CEO rather than founder.

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