With only a few days left from August 26th, BitMart's financial position and the user's liquidity problem continued to ferment. The founder, Sheldon Lee, denied allegations such as “the inability of the user to make a cash withdrawal and the non-payment of the employee's salary”, stating that the Chinese-language account X, which published the content, had been hacked, but did not positively indicate when the withdrawal would be resumed.
User requests to disclose asset liabilities
The starting point of the dispute was a post published in BitMart Chinese account X. The post requested Lee and his business partner, Yi Li, to publish their wallets, assets, liabilities and available reserves and to be verified by an independent third party, with a request for a response by 19 August.
BitMart had previously announced a phase-out and 26 August was the final date of the deal. Since then, multiple users have continued to reflect that cash withdrawals are still limited and are concerned that the Platform will not be able to complete the payment of funds prior to the shutdown.
The founder responded that the focus account was hacked.
Lee referred to the above-mentioned post as “false rumours” and stated that the team had retained evidence of the relevant contents of platform X, planned to call the police during the daytime in the United States and sent a lawyer's letter to X requesting technical and data evidence.
However, his response focused mainly on the blacking of accounts, without a direct indication of the liquidity arrangements of greatest interest to the users or a response to the willingness to accept independent audits. In response to the employee pay issue, Lee stated that the employee's assets “will not take precedence over the customer's assets” and stated that “all persons are customers without privileges”.
Users and reorgans continue to press.
One X user, BeardStaff, stated that his assets had been undepositable since the announcement of 26 July and indicated that the corresponding VIP manager had moved them out of the Telegram group after the withdrawal had stalled. Another user directly asked when the core question to be answered by the platform was when users were allowed to draw on funds.
The chain investigator, ZachXBT, also indicated that if the platform was truly mobile, funds should be returned directly to all users rather than issuing vague statements.
Echo Base claims to have submitted a reorganization programme
Echo Base, the venture capital institution, indicated that a funded restructuring programme had been proposed to BitMart to cover financing during insolvency protection and post-reorganization equity arrangements, and that the programme was supported by Echo Base as a creditor.
Chief Executive Officer Roshan Dharia of Echo Base stated that BitMart had not yet responded. He was of the view that, in the face of a fragmented retail client group, it would be difficult for such hosting platform books to be disposed of through private consultations and that, in the event that a large number of customer claims could not be dealt with in a uniform manner, access to court proceedings might eventually still be required.