Liquidation of Kim Dotcom’s Crypto Business

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First published July 13, 2023Updated 8 hours ago

Andrew Bevin

Andrew Bevin, an Auckland-based business journalist, specializes in property, aged care, logistics and markets.

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Bitcache has raised millions from investors in an effort to revolutionize online payments

A crypto platform promoted by Kim Dotcom as a revolution in how online content creators and sharers would be paid has been liquidated after failing to launch.

The founder of Megaupload is originally from Germany, but is now a New Zealand citizen living in Glenorchy. He is still fighting extradition to the United States for fraud.

In 2016 and 2017, Dotcom discussed the prospects of New Zealand-registered tech company Bitcache in a series of tweets and, alongside download platform K.im, drew nearly US$5 million from 332 investors via the Bnk To The Future investment platform.

Software-as-a-subscription technology would have enabled Bitcoin micro-transactions to pay for Internet services and content.

Dotcom said at the time that Bitcache would be the preferred option for online transactions by 2022.

It will instead be split over unpaid legal fees, after liquidator Iain Nellies was appointed to the Auckland High Court this morning.

Bitcache did not challenge the liquidation in court.

The company’s investor presentation stated that due to its ongoing disputes with the US government over Megaupload, Dotcom would not own or be involved in the day-to-day management of the company and would instead act as its evangelist.

The chief evangelist is, however, listed as a former director of the company, a position he held between July 28, 2016 and January 19, 2017.

Auckland lawyer Phil Creagh served as a director of Bitcache until September 2020. He filed for liquidation of the company on May 24, with a hearing to be held in mid-July.

Creagh would only discuss the basics of the liquidation when contacted by Newsroom last month. It’s quite simple, there are fees due and not paid. The company has so far taken no steps to avoid going into liquidation.

Well, put it into liquidation and see what, if anything, can be salvaged.

He said he and his law firm Anderson Creagh Lai quit acting for Bitcache some time ago.

The company hit its first major speed bump in early 2017. Its original launch date was set for January 21 of that year, the fifth anniversary of the day in 2012 when a heavily armed counterterrorism team raided in Dotcom’s $30 million mansion in Coatesville, Auckland. on behalf of the FBI, which was leading a global operation targeting the popular file-sharing site Megaupload.

Less than two hours before the platform’s launch, Dotcom tweeted Sorry but there was an expected hiccup. I’ll tell you more later today. Let this unfold and give me some time to update you.

Despite other claims made by Dotcom, including the prospect of a beta in August 2017, and a tweet saying it had found the right technology to operate on, as of 2023 the company and its technology will not don’t seem to have made much progress.

It has not filed a return with the Companies Office since 2021 and faces delisting from the companies register.

K.im, the file-sharing platform being developed to run on Bitcache technology, dropped the internet at some point this year.

As of May 21, the sole director of Bitcache is Mark Hubble, an Auckland man who is also a director of labor firm Radius Recruitment.

Radius specialized in recruiting workers to New Zealand from the Philippines and was at the center of a high-profile case involving the conversion of a bingo hall into unsuitable $200-a-week accommodation for migrant workers .

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