What to know : The U.K. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in a $13 billion lawsuit by Bitcoin Satoshi Vision investors, upholding lower-court decisions. The court's decision weakens claims against crypto exchanges for losses after delisting BSV, highlighting limits on exchange liability. The ruling underscores that courts will not enforce speculative claims in crypto, emphasizing market acceptance over litigation.
The U.K.’s Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in a long-running $13 billion lawsuit brought by Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) investors, supporting lower-court rulings that narrowed claims against major crypto exchanges over the token’s delisting.
In a brief decision released on Dec. 8, the court said BSV Claims Limited's “application does not raise an arguable point of law or a point of law of general public importance”.
For exchanges such as Binance, which asked the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to dismiss the case, and other defendants, the Supreme Court’s refusal represents a significant legal victory and a signal that U.K. courts are unwilling to underwrite multibillion-dollar crypto claims built on hypothetical market outcomes.
“The outcome sends a clear signal to the next ‘real Satoshi and the real Bitcoin’ wanting to test their luck in courts,” Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based crypto lawyer and founder of NeosLegal, told CoinDesk in an interview. “Repeated litigation cannot substitute for market acceptance and trust. Courts are not a tool for reversing reputational decline or reviving contested projects when the market has already rendered its verdict.”
The court’s refusal further weakens one of the largest crypto-related lawsuits ever brought in the U.K., effectively blocking claims that exchanges can be held liable for speculative future gains allegedly lost after delisting a token, an issue closely watched by the industry amid concerns over exchange liability for listing decisions.
Heaver said the “lost chance” theory stretches damages law beyond credibility, effectively asking courts to enforce speculative narratives in crypto, or, in the BSV case, seemingly false ones, where alleged losses depend on future adoption, belief and market sentiment rather than demonstrable legal or economic harm.
In a Court of Appeal ruling in May of this year, the U.K. appellate court dismissed BSV Claims Limited’s challenge to earlier decisions, saying that holders of the BSV token who were (or should have been) aware of the 2019 delistings were required to mitigate their losses by selling in an available market and could not recover speculative “foregone growth” damages.
The lawsuit stems from 2019 delistings of BSV by multiple exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, Shapeshift and Bittylicious, following controversy surrounding the project and its supporters. Claimants alleged the exchanges coordinated to remove BSV, breaching U.K. competition law and causing the token’s price to collapse.
“The case confirms what many in the industry already understood: exchanges are not obliged to preserve liquidity or price discovery for assets that the market no longer trusts. Delisting is not market abuse,” Heaver said. “Trust, reputation, and risk perception are fundamental in the crypto industry, and exchanges are permitted to act to protect their traders and their business.”
BSV Claims Limited did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
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