A fan of cryptocurrencies, who used the bug in a blockchain organization code to mint millions of tokens may argue he has the right to tokens, determined by a federal court in California.
Moreover, Mark Shin appropriately claimed that the ICON Foundation did not make it possible to freeze its crypto-asset accounts, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick ruled Monday. The issue deals with property rights in blockchain and decentralized technology – a relatively new legal boundary.
Judge Orrick has stated that Shin’s accusations are now sufficient for the lawsuit to continue, rejecting the majority of the request by the ICON Foundation to reject the claims.
According to court files, Shin found a flaw in the ICON Network code following a software upgrade. Its website claims that ICON sees itself as a decentralized blockchain system and has a native digital asset known as ICX.
The bug enabled Shin to generate 14 million new ICX tokens. Which he transferred according to court papers to the crypto-currency exchanges Kraken and Binance.
However, the code modifications were correctly accepted and implemented. Thus Shin claimed that he is the legitimate proprietor of the new tokens.
“It is clear that the parties strongly dispute whether Shin’s actions in acquiring the ICX tokens were proper and whether common law principles should apply in this unique context,” Judge Orrick said.
ICON disagreed, and Binance and Kraken urged that Shin’s accounts be blocked. Due to Shin’s network assault. Later, ICON offered a fix, called Revision 10 Proposal, to address Shin’s issue.
Shin’s Claim Over the Minting
Shin claims that the measures conflict with ICON’s promise of “decentralized” governance. Shin claimed that the acts of ICON also falsely affected his purported ownership rights over tokens.
Furthermore, he alleges conversion and infringement to the tokens locked in his ICON wallet and frozen with external cryptocurrency exchanges in his accounts. Judge Orrick ruled that his accusations are good enough to go ahead.