The U.S. Department of Justice will reassess the methods of returning assets to victims in cryptocurrency crime cases

ChainCatcher news, according to unchained, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) stated in a memorandum that it will re-examine a practice: how to compensate investors at a price lower than the current market value after digital assets are seized in cases involving fraud and theft.

The memorandum mentioned that the DOJ focused on some high-profile bankruptcy cases in 2022, including FTX, Voyager Digital, Celsius Network, Genesis Global, BlockFi, and Gemini Trust. Although not all of these bankruptcy cases involved criminal charges, the DOJ pointed out that many of them resulted in investor losses of digital assets due to "fraud and theft." Additionally, the DOJ noted that the value of these digital assets has significantly increased in the following years.

However, the court's approach is not intended to cause suffering to creditors. The issue is that current U.S. bankruptcy regulations stipulate that seized assets should be returned to victims at the dollar value at the time the fraud occurred. While this may seem unfair, experts indicate that there are important reasons behind this rule, and changing it could be very difficult.