The UK Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal in a long-running $13 billion lawsuit brought by Bitcoin investors Satoshi Vision (BSV), upholding lower court rulings that restricted claims against major crypto exchanges over the delisting of the token.
In a brief ruling issued on December 8, the court said that BSV Claims Limited’s “application does not raise an arguable point of law or a point of law of general public importance.”
For exchanges such as Binance, which asked the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to dismiss the case, and other defendants, the Supreme Court’s refusal represents a significant legal victory and a signal that UK courts are unwilling to uphold multi-billion dollar crypto claims based on hypothetical market outcomes.
“The result sends a clear signal to the next ‘real Satoshi and real Bitcoin’ who want to try their luck in court,” Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based crypto lawyer and founder of NeosLegal, said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Repeated litigation is no substitute for market acceptance and trust. The courts are not a tool to reverse reputational decline or revive contested projects when the market has already rendered its verdict.”
The court’s refusal further weakens one of the largest crypto-related lawsuits ever brought in the UK, effectively blocking claims that exchanges could be held responsible for future speculative gains allegedly lost after a token’s delisting, an issue closely watched by the industry amid concerns over exchanges’ liability for listing decisions.
Heaver said the “lost chance” theory extends damages law beyond credibility, effectively asking courts to enforce speculative narratives about crypto or, in the BSV case, apparently false narratives, where alleged losses depend on future adoption, belief and market sentiment rather than demonstrable legal or economic harm.
In a Court of Appeal judgment delivered in May this year, the UK Court of Appeal rejected BSV Claims Limited’s challenge to previous rulings, holding that holders of the BSV token who were (or should have been) aware of the 2019 delistings were required to mitigate their losses by selling on an available market and could not recover speculative damages relating to “lost profits”.
The lawsuit stems from the delisting of BSV in 2019 by several exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, Shapeshift, and Bittylicious, following controversy surrounding the project and its supporters. The claimants alleged that the exchanges were coordinated to remove BSV, thereby breaching UK competition law and causing the token’s price to collapse.
“This case confirms what many in the industry have already understood: exchanges are not obligated to preserve liquidity or determine prices for assets that the market no longer has confidence in. Delisting does not constitute market abuse,” Heaver said. “Trust, reputation, and perception of risk are fundamental in the crypto industry, and exchanges are empowered to act to protect their traders and their business.”
BSV Claims Limited did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
