Original title: Coinbase doesnt want Chinese users? The social media reported a large number of disasters: accounts were deleted, assets were transferred away, and the social media denounced it as robbery
Original author: Ting, BlockTempo
Shen Yu, co-founder and CEO of digital asset custody solution provider Cobo, posted a post on the social media platform yesterday with the title What is the biggest enemy of hoarding coins? and attached a case shared by a netizen on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, in which his assets were seized by the centralized exchange Coinbase.
Netizens angrily criticized Coinbase for openly robbing users’ assets
On the social platform Xiaohongshu, a Chinese netizen with the pseudonym Chu published an article on the 24th titled Coinbases open robbery, a complete record of Bitcoin investment rights protection.
The article mentioned that the netizen went all in on the cryptocurrency world in 2017 and made frequent transactions in the past few years. In 2021, he decided to start hoarding coins, but because he was worried that Huobi and Binance would be frequently hacked and disconnected from the Internet, he transferred all his tokens to Coinbase, a legal trading platform in the United States, at the end of the year. After that, he occasionally logged into his account to check the status of his assets.
However, in June this year, the netizen found that he could not log in to his Coinbase account. After consulting customer service, he found that the account had been cancelled and the BTC in the account had been sold and sent to an institution in Wyoming, USA. The reason given by Coinbase was that the netizen’s account had not been active for a long time and the assets were regarded as Unclaimed Property.
Assets considered as “Unclaim Property”
Coinbases official website explains that, depending on the laws of each state, accounts that have not been active for 3 to 5 years will be classified as Unclaimed Property. However, the netizen logged in in February and March this year, so he thought the reason given by Coinbase customer service was nonsense. After the netizen continued to ask and provided login proof, Coinbase customer service said that they could not help and could only ask the netizen to go to Wyomings Division to get his assets back.
Since the incident, the netizen has been following the website of Wyomings Unclaimed Property Division and found that he was not the only case. There were many similar cases, so it took the department three months to sort out these assets. The netizen also found his asset records after searching for many days, so he quickly looked for various materials to try to claim them back. However, since he had forgotten most of the personal information of the previously registered account, he believed that the chances of recovering the assets were slim.
Records of assets transferred from netizens
What is Unclaimed Property?
According to Coinbases official website, when the account owner has no contact or activity for a period of time specified by state law (usually 3-5 years), your funds will be confiscated and they will be considered unclaimed or abandoned property.
Forms of unclaimed property include, but are not limited to, items in checking/savings accounts, brokerage accounts, 401k accounts, retirement fund accounts, and safe deposit boxes.
Reddit community frequently encounters the same problem
On the other hand, many netizens have complained about the same problem on the social forum Reddit, describing that their accounts have been closed and their assets have been transferred to the Wyoming Unclaimed Property Department.
In many cases, it can be found that Coinbase closed accounts mostly because users created accounts at Coinbase Kenya Ascending Markets, Ltd., which is now closed. Coinbase also stated that it tried to contact users through verified email addresses many times to notify them of account closures, but did not receive a response from the user.
According to the pictures provided by Xiaohongshu netizen Chu, Coinbase customer service replied that his account was closed because he established an account at Coinbase Kenya Ascending Markets, Ltd.
However, many Reddit users also criticized: Coinbase APP did not notify you at all, The email description was unclear and did not clearly state that the account would be closed...
Coinbase customer service responded to a user on Xiaohongshu
