According to a news item in CriptoNoticias, Mario Duarte had initially lost and then later received a refund on his bitcoins. Mario had asked the Binance platform for a withdrawal of BTC to a taproot address. But Binance mistakenly transferred it to another address.
Mario’s crypto assets therefore were in effect lost. Mario soon contacted Binance’s customer support.
Initially, Binance informed Mario that Taproot addresses (BC1P addresses) are not supported by the platform for the withdrawal of BTC. However, only a month earlier the platform had intimated that they do accept transfers to Taproot addresses.
Mario was advised by the bitcoin community that since this error was not his fault, and entirely the fault of the platform, he was entitled to demand a refund.
The refund
Initially, the platform tried to make it out to be Mario’s fault. Binance asked Mario to ask Ledger if he could provide a solution.
Then Mario took up the case with Binance’s technical support team. He also publicized his case on social media networks. In this effort, he was widely supported by the bitcoiner community.
Public support for Mario, and the accompanying social pressure forced Binance to accept that it was their error. Finally, on Dec 28, the platform managed to get his lost bitcoins back.
After receiving the refund, Mario tweeted about the same. He thanked everyone in the bitcoin community who had come out in his support. He went on to tweet his thanks to developers Murch, Pieter Wuille and peter Todd who supported him by liking and retweeting his tweets. This support helped his case ended in him winning a refund.
