International arbitration shaping cryptocurrency landscape

Shaun Leong

WITH use, comes abuse – or specifically, disputes. Given the growth of cryptocurrency use worldwide, disputes around the digital currencies are increasing in tandem. The highest profile to date could be the claims against cryptocurrency trading platform Binance for alleged losses from a widespread service outage in May 2021 which coincided with a massive drop in the price of Bitcoin. The outage had allegedly resulted in clogging transactions which prevented investors from closing out or liquidating their trading positions.

More recently, the volatile financial environments arising from force majeure events such as the Russia-Ukraine war might have enhanced the risk profiles of several cryptocurrency-based financial instruments and led to margin calls that might be disputed.