In Feb 2022, the US crypto exchange operator Blockchain.com announced that its UK and European retail customers will be moved from the FCA-regulated EMD agent Blockchain Access (UK) Ltd to the Lithuanian subsidiary Blockchain (LT) Ltd. The UK entity is an agent of FCA-regulated Modulr FS Limited. For some time now, there has been an increase in complaints on the web about the freezing of accounts and alleged problems with KYC checks. Trustpilot rates Blockchain.com with a “Poor” trust level. We, therefore, recommend avoiding blockchain at present.
The Case
Blockchain.com reportedly has 37 million verified users worldwide. However, few Blockchain.com clients will be aware that they are entering into agreements with multiple legal entities. The so-called (non-custodial) Private Key Wallets are managed by Blockchain Access (Ireland) UAB and the so-called (custodial) Trading Accounts (wallets) by Blockchain (LT) UAB.
The frequently reported blocking account and/or transaction blocking (they call it “pending review”) and withdraw problems are likely to primarily affect the trading wallets and thus the Blockchain (LT) UAB.
The user agreement says: “Any Digital Assets held in your User Account on Exchange will be held by Blockchain.com on trust for your benefit on a custodial basis. Among other things, this means that the title to Digital Assets shall at all times remain with you and shall not transfer to any company in the Blockchain.com Group. As the owner of Digital Assets in your User Account, you shall bear all risk of loss of such Digital Assets.” From our point of view, the freezing or withholding of digital funds is against the user agreement and the law.
Reports Problems
If you are experiencing issues with Blockchain.com, please report them to FinTelegram via our whistleblower system, Whistle42. We will collect and analyze the complaints and discuss a joint course of action with our lawyers.
