The Bitcoin wars heat up as Mt. Gox is sued by CoinLab

CoinLab takes Mt. Gox to Court for $75 million as the race to lead the Bitcoin revolution heats up.

In February a joint venture between leading Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, and CoinLab — which bills itself as the first U.S. venture-backed Bitcoin company — was announced. The plan was for CoinLab to take over Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin operations in the US and Canada — as of March 29, all US and Canadian customers transacting with Mt.Gox would transact instead through CoinLab.

As the deadline came and passed nothing happened. Both companies were silent for just over a month. Now the delays have pushed CoinLab to the point where they have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court against Mt. Gox.

In a nutshell, CoinLab is claiming several key points were violated:

1. Mt. Gox has failed to cooperate in a timely fashion in transferring over the “seamless transfer of CoinLab Customers to CoinLab since the Agreement took effect.”
2.  The defendants have not transferred over the relevant “technology, software and know-how to CoinLab.”
3.  Despite a number of requests, Mt. Gox has failed to respond to hand over passwords and other information CoinLab needs to begin operations in North America.

CoinLab claims that it has “invested multiple staff years and significant resources” getting ready to launch the partnership. CoinLab, headquartered in Seattle, bills itself as the world’s first U.S. venture-backed Bitcoin company. It was funded in April 2012 by a group of investors including Tim Draper, Geoff Entress, Barry Silbert, Roger Ver and Joel Yarmon.

Mt. Gox has responded by stating that they “take this very seriously and will respond appropriately and quickly once we have had time to review it.”

We have been writing over the last month how online Forex firms are now entering the Bitcoin trading market with IG becoming the first firm with Bitcoin binary trading, and Plus500 the first to offer leveraged Bitcoin CFD trading. Also, PayPal and Amazon have decided to look into a way for clients to send and receive Bitcoin payments. As volatility begins to settle with Bitcoin and credibility of this virtual currency increases, look for even more online firms to jump into the Bitcoin revolution.

For the full Mt Gox statement click here.

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.