Representatives of cryptocurrency exchanges Bittrex and Poloniex on Friday, August 7, filed a motion with the federal district court for the Southern District of New York.
Lawyers are asking the court to move on to a class-action summary judgment alleging that exchanges, along with Tether and Bitfinex, were involved in "manipulating the cryptocurrency market" in 2017.
The petition states that the plaintiffs cannot “prove a basic premise for their claims,” the essence of which is that the cryptocurrency addresses in question belong to Bitfinex (or that Bitfinex and other exchanges used funds at these addresses to manipulate the market). “Both addresses belong to a person who has no obvious connection to Bitfinex,” the representatives said.
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Bittrex and Poloniex were included in the litigation as defendants in June 2020. The main lawsuit, which was filed in October 2019, alleges that Bitfinex and Tether, the issuer of the popular stablecoin USDT, are behind the soaring 2017 Bitcoin price. According to the plaintiffs, Tether "issued unsecured USDT" to buy cryptocurrencies.
The Bitfinex exchange commented on Bittrex and Poloniex's petition: "The plaintiffs and their representatives will undoubtedly return to the drawing board to come up with a new theory that will give them a reason to demand money."