Users suspect that Estonia-based cryptocurrency exchange Crex24 has suffered a hack following the sudden withdrawal of 1.3 billion in HTMLcoin.
According to a report by Livecoins on Mar. 6, the news outlet has received anonymous information that points to the exchange covering up for a potential hack, with a number of users affected in the process. Users say the exchange has frozen more than sixty altcoin trading pairs, with withdrawals and deposits being suspended for certain coins without warning or explanation.
a complete theft. SCAMMER. they cannot provide account security. and they stole the coins, even they deliberately stole them. They have now undone all trades traded on the Crex24 exchange. They stole our money. PAY ATTENTION SCAMMMM
— abdullah egemen (@abdullahegemen) February 29, 2020
Users have been critical of the exchange for promoting its platform and new coin listings in spite of the ongoing issues.
Why are wallets IN maintenance on crex24?. You should be thinking of how to manage wallets, and not asking for new listings
— enigma (@Lopez4dab) March 1, 2020
Among the affected altcoins was HTMLcoin, which the Livecoins report claims to have garnered a substantial following in Brazil. The altcoin was originally listed on Crex24 in January 2020. However, user funds in HTMLcoin have abruptly vanished from the exchange, leading many to suspect either a hack or outright fraud.
Livecoins cites an anonymous Crex24 user who claims to have lost an “enormous” amount of money from the exchange following the disappearance of the HTMLcoin and freezing of his funds. The report estimates the user’s losses at 150,000 Brazilian real ($32,000) and suspects that many more clients may have suffered from the breach in security.
Crex24 later confirmed that an HTMLcoin wallet had been affected and was working with the altcoin’s team to make up for the losses. While the exchange claims to have only lost 200 million HTML from the security vulnerability, the report shows a transaction on HTMLcoins’ blockchain of 1.3 billion coins ($88,000) leaving the exchange in early February. The transaction’s output is to a wallet on cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC, which also supports HTMLcoin.
The report claims Crex24’s solution to the hack was to increase the number of HTMLcoin trading pairs, which was denied by HTMLcoin’s official core development team. An anonymous member of the development team told Livecoins they were in conversations with HitBTC to uncover the identity of the account which received the 1.3 billion HTMLcoin payout.
Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com
