DWF Labs entities take BitGo to London court over $141M token dispute
Ecosystem ·
Two firms linked to the market maker accuse the custodian of offloading restricted tokens before their lock-up ended, wiping out value in their remaining holdings.
DWF Maas and Falcon Digital, both connected to DWF Labs, have filed a $141 million claim against BitGo in London's High Court, according to Decrypt. The suit centers on tokens tied to Falcon Finance and ESPORTS that were reportedly handed to BitGo at a reduced price in a private over-the-counter arrangement, contingent on the custodian holding them until vesting concluded.
The plaintiffs allege BitGo instead pushed the tokens onto exchanges about two months ahead of the initial unlock date, a move they say flooded a thin trading market and dragged down the worth of the tokens they still held. Reporting cited by the Financial Times indicates the firms first flagged concerns to BitGo during April and May, and only pursued litigation after the custodian failed to provide assurances. BitGo has not commented, and none of the claims have been examined by a court.
The case brings together two major players in the digital-asset industry. BitGo operates as a custodian holding roughly $5 billion in assets, trades on the NYSE following a public listing this year at close to a $2 billion valuation, and recently absorbed NYDIG's institutional trading business. DWF Labs, based in Dubai, is a heavily active market maker and investor spanning numerous token projects.
An additional wrinkle links both sides to World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto venture. DWF previously put $25 million into World Liberty's WLFI token, while BitGo has served as custodian for reserves backing the project's USD1 stablecoin — a responsibility World Liberty is now shifting toward its own recently approved trust bank. The dispute has been picked up across at least seven distinct outlets, including wublockchain.xyz and leviathan.news, underscoring attention on the clash between two institutional names.
What remains unclear is how the London court will weigh the terms of the original OTC agreement, whether BitGo disputes the timeline of the token transfers, and what effect a ruling could have on other custodial arrangements involving early-stage token lock-ups.