Editor's Note

BlockBeats reported on October 26th that creditors of the cryptocurrency trading platform CoinFLEX have sued CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb, accusing him of breaching his fiduciary duty to CoinFLEX when launching OPNX.

In the documents submitted to the Hong Kong civil court by CoinFLEX creditors on October 12th, OPNX was referred to as a "competitor" of CoinFLEX. OPNX did not receive authorization from the CoinFLEX board of directors or creditors, and Mark Lamb misappropriated the company's intellectual property, technology, customer base, and employees to establish the trading platform. In addition, the subpoena also alleges that Mark Lamb acted without authorization in reaching a settlement agreement with Roger Ver.

On the other hand, Roger Ver, also known as "Bitcoin Jesus," another protagonist in the story, is also involved in this dispute. In his perspective, he is the plaintiff, and Mark Lamb "violated the confidentiality agreement and deliberately distorted that CoinFLEX is the plaintiff for the whole world to see."

Original Title: "Hobbled Crypto Exchange's Creditors Are Suing Its CEO and Want to Claw Back Money From 'Bitcoin Jesus'"

Original Authors: Sam Reynolds, Sam Kessler, CoinDesk

Translated by: Kaori, BlockBeats

In January 2023, a fundraising document about GTX was leaked, which was touted as a pioneering trading platform specializing in trading bankrupt debt. The company received support from Su Zhu, Kyle Davies, Mark Lamb, and Sudhu Arumugam, co-founders of CoinFLEX, and will be led by Leslie Lamb, the CEO of CoinFLEX's wife.

The fundraising document of GTX immediately attracted people's attention. Zhu and Davies from 3AC were once considered outstanding figures in the early DeFi and NFT fields of the cryptocurrency industry, but their reputation was challenged when they collaborated with CoinFLEX. At this time, 3AC had already collapsed, fueling a broader decline in the cryptocurrency market.

CoinFLEX stated in a memo regarding the GTX and its team dispute that this new venture will mark "CoinFLEX's commitment to building an open and transparent financial market evolution" and will "increase the value of CoinFLEX's creditors".

However, CoinFLEX's creditors now claim that Mark Lamb violated his fiduciary duty while serving at CoinFLEX by launching the claim platform GTX (later renamed OPNX).

Translator's note: The entrusted responsibility is also known as "accounting responsibility" or "management responsibility". Under the condition that the ownership and management rights of property or production materials are separated, the manager who accepts the commission or command to manage and use the property or production materials should bear the responsibility to the owner. The relationship between the manager and the owner arising from the manager's assumption of entrusted responsibility is called "entrusted responsibility relationship".

In the Hong Kong civil court documents submitted by CoinFLEX creditors, OPNX is considered to be a business competing with CoinFLEX and is listed as a co-defendant along with Lamb and CoinFLEX investor Roger Ver.

The creditors describe this newer platform as a dishonest turn by Lamb and his closest partners, and believe that he should be banned from representing or discussing CoinFLEX in the future.

Mark Lamb did not respond to CoinDesk's request for comment, although Telegram shows that he has read the message and followed one of the authors of this article after sending a private message. Leslie Lamb also did not respond to the comment request sent through Telegram.

From GTX to OPNX

(This content does not require translation as it contains only HTML tags and no Chinese characters.)

In June 2022, due to Zhu and Davies building their empire on unsecured loans from the largest lender in the encryption industry, 3AC was forced to liquidate. They used the borrowed money for a series of failed cryptocurrency bets, resulting in a shortfall of $3 billion for 3AC creditors and a heavy blow to the entire industry, which has yet to fully recover.

When the fundraising documents of GTX were leaked, some people thought that Zhu and Davies were embarking on a new adventure, especially one focused on cryptocurrency bankruptcy, which was very ironic and even a joke. The similarity in name to the largest cryptocurrency exchange platform in history, "FTX," also deepened this impression.

However, despite CoinFLEX and many other cryptocurrency platforms shutting down, OPNX, which has received very little attention and publicity, has not. The platform was publicly launched in April 2023 and has been operational ever since.

Related reading: "Interview with OPNX: We want to create the "perfect ecosystem" for cryptocurrency trading in the post-FTX era".

"Improving the transparency of the trading platform is one of the many things we are doing, playing a core role in our public market-making plan, to provable solvency, etc. The combination of these different things will make users more willing to trade on an open and transparent trading platform. Obviously, this requires sufficient liquidity support, because no matter how transparent your trading platform is, people will not come if it does not have pricing power. So these two aspects must work together, ensuring both liquidity and transparency."

"But we believe that if we establish a transparent trading platform model as the core, it will be able to play a flywheel effect in the next market cycle. If we continue to execute and establish a diversified user base, increase more liquidity, people will begin to understand what a cryptocurrency market trading platform should look like."

针对 Lamb 的案件

translates to

Case against Lamb

OPNX has been officially announced as a direct rebranding of the CoinFLEX trading platform. At the time of the news release, CoinFLEX's website was still online, but a notice warned users to withdraw all funds from the platform before October 31, 2023, at which point the company will "officially cease operations and shut down."

This website also promotes its new platform to users: "CoinFLEX will migrate to OPNX (Open Trading Platform) in the coming months. We encourage you to migrate your account balance."

However, in the October submission by creditors, they claimed that the birth of OPNX was not authorized by the CoinFLEX board of directors or creditors. They accused Mark Lamb of taking unauthorized action to build a claims trading platform using the company's intellectual property, technology, customer base, and employees.

OPNX is registered in Seychelles but has an office in Hong Kong. According to a spokesperson for the creditors' committee, a copy of the subpoena was served at the Hong Kong office on October 12. The document is used to initiate civil litigation proceedings, and CoinDesk obtained a copy from the spokesperson.

CoinFLEX's creditors claim that Lamb, who previously served as CoinFLEX's CEO and co-founder, and the parent companies of OPNX - Open Technologies Holding LTD and Open Technology Markets LTD - signed a "clearly non-commercial and harmful to CoinFlex's interests" license and purchase agreement, or one that is clearly for the benefit of "Lamb and OPNX."

CoinFLEX's creditors are seeking to declare these licenses and purchase agreements invalid. They also hope to temporarily place all assets and profits of OPNX into a trust.

OPNX Starting Difficulty

The encrypted news website Protos reported earlier this month that OPNX has had difficulty finding a foothold since its opening. So far, the only bankruptcy claim that can be traded on the platform comes from FTX. The price of OPNX's "OX" token has also fallen 83% from its peak in August.

In August, OPNX was fined $2.7 million by Dubai's cryptocurrency regulatory agency for non-compliance, and this claims trading platform was not listed as a virtual asset trading platform authorized by Hong Kong's securities regulatory agency.

Zhu was detained last month in Singapore, related to his suspected non-compliance in the bankruptcy proceedings of 3AC. As of the time of this news release, Davies' specific location is not publicly known, but the liquidator of 3AC stated in a declaration last month that Singapore authorities are also seeking him for suspected failure to cooperate with the bankruptcy proceedings.

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