The UK Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal in a long-running $13 billion lawsuit brought by Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) investors, upholding lower court rulings that reduced claims against major crypto exchanges over the token’s delisting.
In a brief decision published on December 8, the court said that BSV Claims Limited’s “application does not raise an arguable question of law or a question of law of general public importance.”
For exchanges like Binance, which asked the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to dismiss the case, and other defendants, the Supreme Court’s refusal represents a significant legal victory and a sign that UK courts are unwilling to back multi-billion-dollar crypto lawsuits based on hypothetical market outcomes.
“The result sends a clear signal to the next ‘real Satoshi and real Bitcoin’ that they will want to try their luck in court,” Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based crypto lawyer and founder of NeosLegal, told CoinDesk in an interview. “Repeated litigation cannot replace market acceptance and trust. Courts are not a tool to reverse reputational deterioration or revive contested projects when the market has already delivered its verdict.”
The court’s refusal further weakens one of the largest cryptocurrency-related lawsuits ever filed in the UK, effectively blocking claims that exchanges can be held liable for future speculative profits allegedly lost after delisting a token, an issue closely watched by the industry amid concerns about exchanges’ liability for listing decisions.
Heaver said the “lost opportunity” theory extends the law of damages beyond credibility, effectively asking courts to enforce speculative narratives in crypto or, in the case of BSV, seemingly false narratives, where alleged losses depend on future adoption, beliefs and market sentiment rather than demonstrable legal or economic harm.
In a Court of Appeal ruling in May this year, the UK appeals court dismissed BSV Claims Limited’s challenge to earlier decisions, saying that BSV token holders who were (or should have been) aware of the 2019 delistings were required to mitigate their losses by selling into an available market and could not recover speculative “lost growth” damages.
The lawsuit stems from the delisting of BSV in 2019 by multiple exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, Shapeshift and Bittylicious, following controversy surrounding the project and its supporters. The plaintiffs alleged that the exchanges coordinated to delist BSV, violating UK competition law and causing the token’s price to collapse.
“The case confirms what many in the industry already understood: exchanges are not required to preserve liquidity or price discovery for assets that the market no longer trusts. Delisting is not market abuse,” Heaver said. “Trust, reputation and risk perception are critical in the crypto industry, and exchanges can act to protect their traders and their businesses.”
BSV Claims Limited did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
