Done and dusted

Cryptocurrency exchange Altsbit is planning to shut its doors after a reported cyber-attack saw “almost all” of five currencies stored on its wallets stolen.

In a tweet posted late last week (February 6) Altsbit revealed “that our exchange was hacked during the night and almost all funds from BTC (Bitcoin), ETH (Ethereum), ARRR (PirateChain) and VRSC (VRSC) were stolen.”

The crypto-exchange added that “a small part of the funds are safe on cold wallets”.

Altsbit said on its website that the following amount of cryptocurrency had been stolen:

  • Lost 6.929 coins out of 14.782 (BTC)
  • Lost 23.21 out of 32.262 (ETH)
  • Lost 3924082 out of 9619754 (ARRR)
  • Lost 414154 out of 852726 (VRSC)
  • Lost 1066 out of 48015 (KMD)

It said: “After a careful analysis we managed to understand the stolen quantities, fortunately a good part of the coins were kept on cold storage.

“These coins will be returned to the users of Altsbit exchange not having the possibility to compensate for these losses, they will be distributed among all users of the platform each coin will have its calculation based on the percentage that was saved during the attack.”

The proportion of the stolen cryptocurrencies that were refundable, it said, were about 28% of ETH, 51% of VRSC, 53% of BTC, 59% of ARRR, and 98% of Komodo (KMD).

Altsbit said that users could apply for refunds between February 10 and May 8.

“After this date it will no longer be possible to request a refund as the Altsbit platform will be terminated,” it said.

The platform’s announcement to shut down has sparked speculation of an ‘exit scam’ over social media. This occurs when a crypto-exchange’s promoters orchestrate an attack in order to make off with investor’s funds.

Altsbit warned its users to watch for further nefarious activity as they completed the refund process.

“Altsbit employees will never ask for confidential information,” it said.

“Scammers will promise to repay the lost funds, pay close attention.”

Altsbit, which launched in April 2018, is a relatively minor player among cryptocurrency exchanges, and does not feature in the CoinMarketCap Top 100 platforms by trading volume.

The Altsbit incident is the latest in a string of high-profile hacks against crypto-exchanges, including multimillion dollar thefts from crypto-exchange giant Binance and Japanese exchange Bitpoint in May and June of last year.

The Daily Swig has contacted Altsbit for an update.


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