They are so going to get sued if the price of Bitcoin Cash crashes by the end of the year. Where do they get off telling customers they can't withdraw an asset for five months?

This is what lawyers call "conversion"[1]. A person who knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over property of another person commits criminal conversion. The element of knowledge is found when the accused person engages in the conduct and he/she is aware of a high probability that he/she is doing so. An essential element of criminal conversion is that “the property must be owned by another and the conversion thereof must be without the consent and against the will of the party, to whom the property belongs, coupled with the fraudulent intent to deprive the owner of the property.”

It's legally equivalent to theft.[2] The typical example of conversion is renting something and then refusing to return it.

Coinbase execs, you really need to be talking to good securities lawyers.

[1] https://conversion.uslegal.com/criminal-conversion/ [2] https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1317-n...