Andreas Antonopoulos has agreed to be heard by the Court as an expert in the lawsuit against Bitfinex and Tether.
This concerns the case 1:19-cv-09236-KPF, namely that of Leibowitz v. iFinex Inc. (the company owning the exchange) accusing Bitfinex and Tether of manipulating the bitcoin market at the end of 2017 in order to get its value off the ground.
The issue is quite complex, although many believe that these accusations against iFinex are a bit risky.
It is probably for this reason that the plaintiffs have asked Andreas Antonopoulos to testify as an expert witness before Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
The news is official, given that the document in which the same Antonopoulos agrees to testify as an expert has been made public.
In the document Antonopoulos states that he is unbiased in this matter, since he is not a party to the dispute, and he declares:
“If called as a witness, I could and would testify to the truth of these facts and opinions under oath”.
He also adds:
“I believe that my education and experience fully qualify me to make the statements contained in this declaration
I am considered one of the world’s foremost experts in Bitcoin and open blockchain technology. I have worked in the Bitcoin and open blockchain industry since 2012″.
In the document, he also states his qualifications and his many experiences in the field
He does not go into the specifics of the case, since he will do so if invited by the judge to testify as an expert, although he does say that, in his experience, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and USDT present new legal challenges, especially because they are non-traditional asset classes with unique technical and financial properties.
In addition, Antonopoulos also points out that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology evolve very rapidly, exceeding the speed of development of regulatory frameworks, and that, while sharing some superficial similarities with other financial technologies, they differ substantially from them, have very few similar precedents, and are difficult to explain to non-experts.
Obviously, at this stage, it is not known what he might testify in court if called by plaintiffs to do so, but at least his obvious and undeniable expertise will help shed some light on what really happened.
Moreover, in the above-mentioned document, Antonopoulos himself points out that he also testified as an expert in the famous Kleiman v. Wright lawsuit, concerning the large amount of bitcoins kept in the so-called Tulip Trust.