UK Supreme Court Rejects $13B BSV Investor Appeal Against Exchanges

The appeal, brought by BSV Claims Limited, sought damages from prominent exchanges including Binance and Kraken for their 2019 decision to delist the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision token. The claimants argued that this action caused two distinct types of harm: an ‘immediate and persistent effect’ from the sharp price drop following delisting, and a ‘forgone growth effect,’ alleging that BSV’s potential long-term growth was permanently stunted by its removal from major trading platforms. The total claim exceeded $13 billion, a figure rooted in the assertion that BSV’s trajectory was irrevocably damaged.

However, this legal argument faced significant skepticism. In July 2024, the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal struck out the ‘forgone growth effect’ claim, dismissing the foundational assumption that BSV would have ultimately grown to match the value of Bitcoin (BTC) itself. The Supreme Court justices—Lord Hodge, Lord Sales, and Lady Rose—upheld this view, stating plainly that ‘The application does not raise an arguable point of law or a point of law of general public importance.’ This refusal to grant permission to appeal signifies the court’s view that the claimants’ core legal theory was fundamentally flawed.

A pivotal legal doctrine underpinning the court’s decision is the ‘market mitigation rule.’ This principle requires claimants to take reasonable steps to reduce their losses when functioning markets are available. The court affirmed that BSV investors had a responsibility to attempt to mitigate their losses once it became apparent the token was being delisted by exchanges. In essence, the law does not shield investors from market decisions if they could have taken action to limit their own financial exposure.

This affirmation has broader implications for cryptocurrency regulation and litigation. It places a degree of responsibility on token holders to react to market-moving news, such as exchange delistings, rather than relying solely on legal recourse after the fact. The May 2024 attempt by the appellants to revive the claim was dismissed specifically under this rule, cementing its application in the digital asset space. The ruling suggests that courts will expect a level of proactive engagement from participants in these often-turbulent markets.

The legal defeat compounds a period of severe decline for Bitcoin Satoshi Vision. BSV has plummeted more than 96% from its April 2021 all-time high of $489.75, recently trading around $18.37. This collapse has been accelerated by factors beyond the exchange delistings. Last year, a UK court ruled that Craig Wright, the public creator of BSV, was not the pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, as he had long claimed, damaging the token’s foundational narrative.

Technical issues have also plagued the network. In 2021, Coinbase fully disabled support for BSV after the network suffered a ‘51% attack’—a major security breach where a single entity gains majority control of the blockchain—rendering it unstable. This stands in stark contrast to the trajectory of Bitcoin (BTC) and even Bitcoin Cash (BCH), from which BSV forked. While BSV has floundered, Bitcoin has continued to set new peak prices, reaching above $126,000 in October 2024 before settling recently at approximately $85,873. The court’s dismissal of the ‘forgone growth’ claim, which imagined BSV matching Bitcoin’s value, highlights the vast and growing divergence in the market’s valuation of these assets.