Title: "Coinbase No Longer Serving Chinese Users? Community Outraged: Accounts Deleted, Assets Transferred, Community Accuses Robbery"
Author: Ting, BlockTempo of Dynamic Zone
Cobo, a provider of digital asset management solutions, co-founder and CEO Shen Yu, posted on a community platform yesterday with the title "What is the biggest enemy of hodling coins __?" and attached a case shared by a netizen on the community platform Xiaohongshu, where their assets were seized by the centralized exchange Coinbase.
Netizen angrily accuses Coinbase of robbing users' assets
A Chinese netizen named "Chu" on the community platform Xiaohongshu published an article on the 24th titled "Coinbase, the openly robbing exchange, a complete record of Bitcoin investment rights protection."
The article mentioned that the netizen went all in on the coin circle in 2017 and frequently operated in the following years. In 2021, he decided to start hodling coins, but due to concerns about frequent hacker attacks and network interruptions on platforms like Huobi and Binance, he transferred all his tokens to the U.S. legal trading platform Coinbase at the end of that year. After that, he occasionally logged into the account to check the asset status.
However, in June of this year, the netizen found that he couldn't log into his Coinbase account. After consulting customer service, he found that the account had been closed, and the BTC in the account had been sold and sent to an institution in Wyoming, USA. Coinbase's reason was that the netizen's account had been inactive for a long time, and the assets were considered "Unclaimed Property."
Assets considered "Unclaimed Property"
According to the explanation on the Coinbase official website, according to state laws, accounts that have been inactive for 3-5 years are classified as Unclaimed Property. However, the netizen had logged in in February and March of this year, so he believed that the reason given by Coinbase customer service was nonsense. After the netizen continued to inquire and provided login proof, Coinbase customer service said that they could not help and could only ask the netizen to contact the Wyoming's Division to reclaim the assets.
Since the incident, the netizen has been monitoring the website of Wyoming's Unclaimed Property Division and found that he was not the only case. There were many similar cases, so it took the department 3 months just to organize these assets. After searching for several days, the netizen finally found his asset records and quickly tried to apply for recovery with various documents. However, since he had forgotten most of the personal information registered for the accounts, he believed that the chance of recovering the assets was slim.
Netizen's transferred asset records
What is "Unclaimed Property"?
According to the explanation on the Coinbase official website, when the account owner has had no contact or activity for a specified period of time (usually 3-5 years) as designated by state law, your funds will be confiscated, and they are considered unclaimed or abandoned property.
Forms of unclaimed property include but are not limited to checking/savings accounts, brokerage accounts, 401k accounts, retirement fund accounts, and items in safety deposit boxes.
Similar issues frequently reported in Reddit community
On the other hand, many netizens also complained about the same issue in the Reddit community forum, describing their accounts being closed and their assets being transferred to the Wyoming's Division for unclaimed property.
In many cases, it can be seen that Coinbase closed accounts mostly because "the user established an account with Coinbase Kenya Ascending Markets, Ltd., which has now been closed", and Coinbase stated that they had made multiple attempts to contact the user through the verified email address to notify them of the account closure, but did not receive a response from the user.
According to the images provided by the Xiaohongshu netizen "Chu," Coinbase customer service replied that his account was closed because he had established an account with Coinbase Kenya Ascending Markets, Ltd.
However, many Reddit netizens also criticized: "Coinbase APP did not provide any notification," "The email description was unclear and did not clearly state the account closure"…
Coinbase customer service response to Xiaohongshu netizen
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