Canada’s small Bitcoin exchange MapleChange took to Twitter to announce that they have been hacked and that they are unable to give funds back to users. It reports that not only is it the latest victim of hackers, but that every penny has been stolen as a consequence of the hack.
The tweet says that they suspect it is due to a bug that “some people have managed to withdraw all the funds from our exchange. It adds we are in the process of a thorough investigation for this. We are extremely sorry that it has come to end like this. Until the investigation is over, we cannot refund anything.”
While some cast this announcement aside, others issued further comments that made many question the situation. It still remains uncertain what the exact situation was, all signs point toward a textbook exit scam. Although MapleChange’s history dates back to the end of May, activity was minimal until last week when the daily volume reached a high of just under US$70,000, which carried into notable $30,000 daily averages for most of the week.
It is not known for certain how much funds were stored on the exchange, but total losses likely rest somewhere around US$3-5 million. MapleChange was the primary source of trading for three altcoins: Conceal Lumeno and Blur Network. Each of these coins faces a grim future as the communities are left to themselves to pick up the pieces from this unfortunate event. Conceal and Lumeno both boasted market caps above $1 million, but it’s very possible the value of the coins could drop to zero as a result of the shutdown.
The exchange is not important in the market but there were roughly 1,000 users registered on MapleChange that were potentially affected; the site also enforced KYC, alluding to the possibility that their personal information may be at risk as well.
Such an unexpected occurrence raised the feeling of skepticism among many and hence questions are inevitably being raised as to whether the people behind MapleChange have involved in the deception themselves.
The attack has affected the exchange on Sunday morning, exactly at the time when users were still asleep. At the moment there is no more information on the issue and whether the funds will be able to be recovered or not.
