Singapore High Court offers guidance for valuing crypto assets

Facts

The decision in Kalen, Alexandru v. World Exchange Services Pte Ltd [2026] SGHC 31 (Kalen) arose from a claim brought by 85 claimants against the online cryptocurrency trading platform, wex.nz (WEX).

The claimants held digital tokens and monies on WEX. Under the User Agreement, the defendant was to hold the claimants’ funds in pooled accounts separate from its corporate funds. The defendant also entered into a Buyback Agreement obliging it to purchase or redeem WEX tokens issued to users.

From 12 July 2018, the claimants were unable to control, transfer, or withdraw their digital tokens and monies on WEX. Initially, WEX’s administrators described this as a “technical” issue and indicated that withdrawal functionality would resume in due course. By around November 2018, the platform could no longer be accessed at its primary URL (https://wex.nz/), though it remained accessible at other URLs stated in the defendant’s Twitter posts. By around December 2018, the WEX platform became entirely inaccessible from any URL.

The claimants commenced legal proceedings and obtained summary judgment against the defendant, with damages to be assessed.

 Key findings

The Court ordered the defendant to pay damages to the claimants, assessed at US$10,126,158.43, together with interest and legal costs.

In quantifying damages, the court addressed three issues:

1. the quantity of digital tokens and monies held in the claimants’ accounts as of 12 July 2018 (the Quantity Issue);
2. the appropriate date of valuation for the claimants’ losses (the Valuation Date Issue); and
3.  the value of the tokens and monies at the date of valuation (the Valuation Issue).

Quantity Issue
 
To prove the quantity of digital tokens owned by the claimants on the WEX platform, the claimants relied on screenshots of their user accounts taken on various dates, together with statements confirming that the screenshots and transactions had not been altered. The defendant naturally challenged this evidence as lacking credibility.

The Court found this evidence sufficient to establish the quantity of digital tokens and monies held in the claimants’ WEX accounts as of 12 July 2018. In reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected the defendant’s expert evidence challenging the reliability of the screenshots, which, in the Court’s view, rested on an unsupported assumption that the claimants could transact on WEX after 12 July 2018 and a flawed equation of asset liquidity with unreliability.
 
Valuation Date Issue
 
The claimants argued that, in assessing damages, the value of the lost digital tokens should be assessed as at the date of trial rather than the date of breach. The Court rejected this argument.

The Court reviewed the authorities on the date-of-breach rule, including its application to volatile assets, including crypto assets. This included a crypto asset-specific decision in the Singapore High Court’s decision in Fantom Foundation Ltd v. Multichain Foundation Ltd and another [2024] SGHC 173 as well as the English decision in Stanford International Bank Ltd (in liquidation) v. HSBC Bank plc [2023] AC 761. The Court concluded that the breach-date rule is not absolute. Where the claimant cannot reasonably mitigate on the breach date, the court may assess damages at a reasonable time thereafter.

Having considered all the circumstances of the case, the Court held that the appropriate date of valuation was a reasonable time after 12 July 2018, namely around October or November 2018. Although the claimants first discovered the defendant’s breach on 12 July 2018, it was not reasonable to require them to take mitigating steps on that day or shortly thereafter, as the claimants might reasonably have thought that their inability to operate on the WEX platform was temporary and expected the platform to resume service soon.

The Court rejected the claimants’ claim for present-date valuation. It identified several reasonable steps the claimants could have taken at an earlier juncture, including:

• formally demanding the return of their digital tokens and monies;
• commencing legal proceedings for specific performance in late 2018; or
• purchasing substitute digital tokens on the open market.

The claimants took none of these steps until 13 September 2023, nearly five years after the breach. The Court held that their inability to buy the same tokens at present-day prices resulted from their own failure to mitigate promptly. It did not justify present-date valuation.
 
Valuation Issue
 
The Court accepted the claimants’ use of average daily closing prices from CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, noting that the defendant’s own expert conceded that CoinMarketCap “is a reliable source”. Damages were calculated by averaging three values, with the highest value within three months post-breach used as a proxy for the October value, producing an aggregate of US$10,126,158.43.

Implications

While questions of valuation date might seem academic, they are often of vital importance in crypto litigation and arbitration. Given asset price volatility and the length of litigation and arbitration proceedings, the difference between a date-of-breach and date-of-trial assessment will often be significant. This impact may be even greater where derivative products are involved, with leverage driving further volatility in user positions.

In Kalen, the Singapore Court rejected both rigid breach-date valuation and trial-date valuation in favour of a flexible, mitigation-anchored date. This may be the breach date or a reasonable time thereafter. In doing so, it underlined the importance of claimants taking prompt mitigating steps once they are aware loss has been suffered. Even where it is impractical to purchase substitute tokens (e.g., due to the nature of the tokens or market conditions), users are not excused from the duty to mitigate entirely. Reasonable steps may include formally demanding the return of assets, commencing legal proceedings for specific performance, or exploring other avenues of recovery.

Client Alert 2026-184