Hacked cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia has appointed liquidators as executives warn of an investigation lasting “months rather than weeks.” Meanwhile, Binance is undergoing a major upgrade.
Cryptopia Users Brace For Long Haul
In a press release May 14, accounting firm Grant Thornton confirmed it was overseeing liquidation procedures at the New Zealand exchange, which lost $23 million NZD ($15.1 million USD) to hackers in January.
“Despite the efforts of management to reduce cost and return the business to profitability, it was decided the appointment of liquidators was in the best interests of customers, staff and other stakeholders,” the press release reads.
The liquidators are focused on securing the assets for the benefit of all stakeholders. While this process and investigations take place, trading on the exchange is suspended.
According to its own previous estimates, Cryptopia lost just under 10 percent of its asset holdings in the attack.
The event sparked a major police investigation, with local authorities seeking help on an international scale to track the stolen funds. The hackers soon began to dump the tokens, with more than $3.2 million sold by the first week of February.
The scale of the effort means that attempts to restore functionality for the exchange’s users will inevitably face long delays.
“We will conduct a thorough investigation, working with several different stakeholders including management and shareholders, to find the solution that is in the best interests of customers and stakeholders,” David Ruscoe, one of the Grant Thornton executives commented.
Given the complexities involved we expect the investigation to take months rather than weeks.
Binance Prepares For Relaunch
Cryptopia underscored the challenges still facing the exchange sector as more and more entry-level traders began interacting with cryptocurrency.
Since January, hackers have succeeded in stealing coins from elsewhere, notably from global heavyweight Binance – which originally helped block the Cryptopia takings – at the end of last month.
While that compromise netted the attackers over $40 million, Binance was nonetheless prepared, reimbursing affected users from a preexisting insurance fund while admitting the original hoard may never return.
The platform froze deposits and withdrawals following the hack, and on Wednesday is carrying out a maintenance period of up to 8 hours, during which hardly any functionality will be live.
“Binance will perform a scheduled system upgrade starting at 2019/05/15 03:00 AM (UTC). The upgrade will take approximately 6-8 hours,” a statement confirmed.
Once the upgrade is complete, we will make a further announcement and provide users with a 30 minute window to cancel any open orders before trading resumes. Deposits, withdrawals and other account-related functions will be made available after the upgrade is complete.
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