On 8 April the Supreme Court in New Zealand decided that all the stolen cryptocurrencies belong to the customers of the New Zealand based company Cryptopia. They therefore have the right to get their money back.

The decision was published on Cryptopia’s official Twitter page. Judge David Gendall indicated that the cryptocurrency that was recorded by the liquidators should not be used, as these assets did not belong to Cryptopia, but to its customers. As a result, the customers can simply claim them back. Nevertheless, fees may be charged for the work that has been done.

(1/2) Today, 8 April 2020, Justice Gendall delivered his judgement finding firstly, cryptocurrencies are “property” within the definition outlined in s2 of the Companies Act 1993 and secondly, that account holders' cryptocurrency were held on multiple trusts, separated by … — Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) April 8, 2020

The case has been going on for about a year. Cryptopia appointed Grant Thornton as liquidator in May of 2019. This as a result of two hacks in January 2019. Cryptopia lost about $18 million after this hack, which caused Cryptopia to close its doors. However, it soon became clear that the customers could not be easily repaid.

It was difficult for Cryptopia to determine from which customer the balances had been stolen. Cryptopia did not give customers their own individual wallet, but used a single wallet for multiple customers, which made it impossible to tell which customer had what and made it difficult for them to determine which customer had to get her money back. As a result, the liquidators don’t know how much money has to go to the customers.

Despite the fact that the customers finally have news about what will happen to their balance, unfortunately nothing is clear yet about the criminals. There were rumors that $250,000 had been closed by an insider. People also said that a group of hackers from North Korea with the name Lazarus would have done this. However, these are only rumors.