(ECNS) -- An investor surnamed Li is suing a bitcoin (BTC) company based in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, in a court in Beijing's Chaoyang District, demanding compensation worth more than 697,000 yuan ($104,725) over the theft of BTCs out of his account, Beijing Times reported on Monday.
Li claimed the website, www.BTC100.com, where he had registered his account on December 18 last year — and invested 510,000 yuan for 56,515.28 Global General Points (GGPs) of the virtual asset — had loopholes that led to the theft. The site was run by the Zhengzhou Bit Technology Company, Ltd.
Since January 19, Li said his registered cell phone had received messages and voice prompts many times, with a note at the end telling him to ignore the information if the operation was not conducted by him personally.
Then on the afternoon of January 25, he discovered that 56,000 GGPs had been transferred from his account at 1:30 pm the previous day. His loss amounted to more than 697,000 yuan, according to the rate at the time of 12.46 yuan per GGP.
Li then reported the case to police. On January 28, the Zhengzhou company showed evidence, which claimed that Li's BTCs had been transferred to the account of a newly-registered user surnamed Liu.
Further investigations by the company found that the account was registered using false information, with no identification or registered cell-phone number.
Li said he had never revealed his information or password to anyone, and that the system telling him to "ignore" the information had resulted in him being unaware of potential risks. Moreover, the company failed to honor its obligation to check the true identity of its users, and should be made to pay compensation, Li added.
Further investigation into the case is underway.
