Former OKCoin CTO, Changpeng Zhao has revealed that OKCoin has violated both of the contracts (version 7 & 8) demonstrating strong evidence for a breach of contract with Roger Ver.
The ongoing dispute between Roger Ver and OKCoin on the alleged forgery of one of the contracts for the management of the domain bitcoin.com has forced one of OKCoin’s former CTO, Changpeng Zhao, to release a public statement on Reddit.
During his stay at OKCoin, Changpeng Zhao initiated the contract between OKCoin and Roger Ver, and signed version 7 of the contract with his PGP signature. However, Zhao stated that he did not recall version 8 of the contract.
Zhao explained that OKCoin has violated both of the contracts (version 7 & 8), which stand as a strong evidence for a breach of contract.
Furthermore, Zhao claimed that OKCoin has used his “physical signature to conduct multiple bank transfers from bank accounts,” after Zhao left the company without informing him. Zhao’s lawyer is currently in progress of confirming the alleged forgery of his physical signature with the banks.
In his statement, Zhao also mentioned the fact that Zhao and Ver are very good friends, and used “a simple gentleman’s agreement as the contract.” However, Zhao stated:
“I did not expect OKCoin will delay or default on payments of US$10k in size. For this I apologize. I also did not expect OKCoin would not pay my salary for the time I spent there.”
Evidences of OKCoin Denied by Vitalik Buterin
Despite the heavy criticisms aimed at OKCoin on Reddit, OKCoin attempted to disprove Ver’s forgery claim by offering a bounty of US$20,000 to anyone who can do so, in response to which Ver offered US$1,000,000 to anyone who can prove that he signed the contract. Eventually, OKCoin awarded Ben McGinnes, for his evidence which “proved” that “The timestamp of document F has not been modified.”
However, Zhao described the findings of McGinnes as “illogical at best,” as it was quickly denied by the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, as he explained “My primary technical concern with the report:
“I am highly skeptical of this idea that it is ‘not possible’ to manipulate timestamps. Particularly, the way I would do it is by shutting off internet access, maybe switching to a fresh linux installation, and setting the system time to whatever I want before making the document.”
Following Buterin’s comment and Star Xu’s demand for an apology from Ver, a redditor commented:
“So it is still a forgery. There seems to be an odd insistence from Star Xu that OKCoin is not responsible for the actions of its officers if they are no longer employed by the company. In no way would that be legally defensible.”
