The Chilean cryptocurrency exchange Buda achieved justice in court. The Antimonopoly Court of Chile ordered two large local banks to re-open the accounts of the Buda crypto exchange.
Over the past few months, there has been a lot of uncertainty in the Chilean cryptocurrency market. Given the lack of legislation in the country for the digital sector, banks took on the role of regulators and closed the accounts of cryptocurrency platforms unilaterally.
Two exchanges in Chile appealed to the association of banks in the country (Asociación de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras or ABIF) for assistance regarding the closure of their bank accounts, calling on the regulator to take a clear position on this issue. In addition, the Buda crypto exchange filed a lawsuit against 10 banks that “unjustifiably” closed its bank accounts. In the lawsuit, the exchange accuses the country's banking system of making a decision that unilaterally cut off the platform from banking services and led to the inability of the crypto platform to function. According to representatives of the exchange, such actions are killing the cryptocurrency industry in the country. If this trend continues, Chile's cryptocurrency market will go back five years.
Following a war between local banking institutions and cryptocurrency platforms, Chile's Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC) ordered three of the country's largest banks to reopen the accounts of the two platforms.
Of the three banks that received the TDLC decision, Bancoestado, Scotiabank and Itaú, Bancoestado, the only one so far has completed the re-opening of a new account for Cryptomkt. The crypto platform hopes to resume trading, despite the fact that “five days after the account was closed, it returned 99.8% of the funds to Cryptomkt clients, so now they will start again from scratch,” said Martin Joffre, the exchange’s founder. However, representatives of the crypto industry hope that they will be able to restore the digital currency market and traders will no longer experience difficulties with the circulation of funds.
Scotiabank and Itaú banks are in no hurry to comply with the court decision and filed an appeal, but it was rejected and the court confirmed the unfoundedness of the banks’ actions and the need to restore the accounts of the two crypto platforms. Banks do not yet intend to back down and may take the cases to the Supreme Court for legal protection. In any case, the situation cannot be called stable as long as there is no legislative framework in the country.. Today, Chile does not have a law prohibiting the use of cryptocurrency; at the same time, cryptocurrencies are not considered money or securities.
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