I am being asked by the liquidators of Mirror Trading International (MTI) to repay all bitcoin drawn from the schemeat today's bitcoin rate. I deposited 0.02062674 BTC on the 18th June 2020 and withdrew 0.0245 BTC on the 25th August 2020. My nett gain was 0.00387326 BTC.

I am now being instructed to repay all bitcoin invested. I have offered to pay all bitcoin profit at todays exchange rate. The profit was R 773.00 on the day of withdrawl. Today it would be over R 4000.

They are requesting me to repay the full withdrawl amount with no consideration for the initial amount deposited. This would be in the region of R 30,000.00 at todays BTC exchange rate. They seem to have the law on their side. It seems that bigger investors have lawyered up and are fighting it.

I sent them an offer two weeks ago labelled "without prejudice", to pay over the amount of bitcoin I accrued in the two months it was in the MTI account. They have not responded. They did indicate in their demand that they would consider fair and reasonable offers, and I did respond withing the 10 day timeframe they stipulated.

What should my next step be? 

Hi Paul and thank you for your question,

I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.

Please keep in mind that our discussions is for general information purposes only. Our engagement on this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. 

I am well-aware of the MTI cases and my colleague actually represents a number of people who are being sued by MTI - just like yourself!   There is also a lot of articles online recently about the liquidators, and whether or not they are over-stepping or misinterpreted the law in their claims. 

The general consensus is that they have not understood the claims and that they have structured the claims incorrectly. 

If you invested R5,000 in the scheme and you then drew out R6,000 in order to make a R1,000 profit, what the liquidators should be asking you to do is to repay the full R6,000 back to them, and then to submit a claim (as a concurrent creditor) for the R5,000 which you initially invested. 

For them to try work the Rands back into BTC and then to somehow allege that you still have the BTC, or that you should buy BTC at today's prices so that you can give the BTC back to them, is just wrong.  This claim is based on a wrong interpretation of the law.

Like I said, you are required to pay them the full withdrawal amount (in Rands!) with no consideration for the initial amount deposited, and then you are supposed to submit a claim against the company for the initial amount deposited (in Rands!)

There is absolutely no reference to today's BTC exchange rate. Why? Because you didn't buy BTC from them and keep it. You bought it from them and then sold it back to them.   You no longer have the BTC asset ... so how can they demand that you pay the current value back to them?! 

You really have two options - 

1) Offer to pay them the actual Rand value of the profit that you made (i.e. R4,000) in full and final settlement of all claims,

OR

2) Pay them back the full withdrawal amount (in Rands!) and then submit a claim against the company for the initial amount deposited (in Rands!)

Those are really your only two options. 

I can't imagine that they have issued a summons against you?  Have they?