What to do when blockchain.com has blocked your account?

What to do if the crypto platform canceled the verification of your documents and blocked access to the funds placed on the platform?

It was with such a problem that a client approached us regarding his interactions with the blockchain.com platform. Before the person contacted us, he had already taken a number of actions - he contacted platform support and lawyers, but these actions did not lead to a positive result.

In this article, we decided to describe this case, determine the steps to be taken in the event of a conflict or disagreement with a crypto-platform, and also draw attention to the fact that a timely appeal to a legal company that specializes, including in issues of blockchain and cryptocurrencies , will help you not only save time and money, but also really "save" your funds.

What is blockchain.com?

‍As they write about themselves, blockchain.com is “a full-featured platform for the provision of cryptocurrency services, created to interact with companies with their own cryptoassets and institutional clients for the purpose of lending funds, carrying out trading operations and conducting custodial activities, taking into account your needs”.

What happened?

The case that will be discussed happened with a user of the blockchain.com platform.

Since there is an opportunity to deposit cryptocurrency on this platform, our client decided to use it and, after verifying the documents (as required by the terms of placing funds), deposited 150 thousand tokens (usdt and usdc), which is equivalent to 150 thousand dollars.

"blockchain.com has additional services that you can use in the wallet itself, provided that the account is verified," says our client, "In the fall of 2022, I verified the account by sending the income statement and the first page of the passport and foreign passport. They verified the account and after that the earn service (crypto deposit) became available to me. I used it."

For some time, our client received interest from the deposit. However, in February 2023, he received a letter from blockchain.com stating that they were canceling the verification of his documents, thus blocking access to the Earn program. That is, the client loses access to his funds.

"I was disabled from withdrawing funds from a crypto deposit, but continued to accrue interest. After contacting support, I was told that they could not provide additional information. After some time, interest stopped being calculated in the application."

Our client contacted the platform's support several times, wrote on Linkedin, on FB, on Trustpilot, and at the same time saw that the discussions were simply "clogged" with complaints about verification rejection in February. He never received answers to his questions.

What did we do?

After studying the situation, Avitar lawyers - Iryna Shvydka and Anna Gavinovych - took the following steps:

Conducted research on the countries in which legal entities of the exchange are registered, whether they have the appropriate licenses, which laws blockchain.com violates with its actions, which authorities regulate the activities of the platform.

The client was offered an action plan based on the research.

Wrote an official complaint to blockchain.com, in which we described the problem and informed them of the steps we will take if they do not unblock access to the funds.

Literally two days after sending an electronic-only claim email, they unblocked access and our client made his first withdrawal. The first two transactions went quickly, and the third one hung again, with no one responding to any requests again. Then we took another step.

We supplemented the claim with new inputs and 15 minutes after our client submitted a new claim online, the transaction was confirmed and the rest of the blocked funds arrived in his wallet.

Conclusions

Despite the fact that the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies is rapidly developing, covering more and more people, and regulation in this field is increasing, many points related to specific situations can only be “rolled out” with the participation of lawyers. The client got his $150,000 back thanks to timely referral to lawyers with blockchain experience and expertise.