Ricardo Vasquez, a vascular surgeon from Indiana, is taking Coinbase—an embattled cryptocurrency exchange—to court in San Francisco after losing more than $340,000 worth of digital currency in a hack.
The lawsuit states that hackers managed to bypass Coinbase’s security protocols such as password-reset delays and device verification, as well as Vasquez’s two-factor authentication. Furthermore, the hackers paid off the $40,000 Vasquez owed to Coinbase in order to gain access to his digital wallet.
The 217 transactions conducted by the hackers resulted in the plundering of Vasquez’s wallet. He alleges that Coinbase failed to provide reasonable notification of the red-flag actions, and that he was unable to explain his case to customer service for weeks.
Vasquez is looking to receive the sum he lost in the hack, as well as interest and costs related to the lawsuit. His case is the latest in a string of flare-ups between Coinbase and disgruntled customers, and it raises the broader question of the crypto market’s long-term viability.
The day before the lawsuit was filed, Coinbase introduced a new internal risk-scoring system to reduce the likelihood of fraudulent transactions. Neither Coinbase nor Vasquez’s office responded to a request for comment.
Newton Oldfather, a San Anselmo-based attorney representing Vasquez, declined to comment.
