After several false signals and delays, Cryptopia exchange has finally gone live again. The New Zealand-based exchange has been in the news ever since it was hacked in mid-January. The New Zealand police concluded their investigations three weeks ago, giving the exchange the green light to reopen. And now it has, in read only mode.
Cryptopia had scheduled the reopening for yesterday; however, it announced on Twitter that it was experiencing slight delays and had pushed the reopening by a day.
Update: We were aiming to get the site live today however, we have had a slight delay and are aiming to have the site live tomorrow. We will keep you updated as this progresses.
— Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) March 4, 2019
The exchange announced today:
“The read only site will be live today, it will show balances as at 14th Jan 2019. Please use this site to reset passwords and 2FA credentials. We are finalising a rebate process for affected users, more details to follow. Thank you for your support during the last few weeks.”
User account balances will reflect the value they had before the hack. This will enable the exchange to calculate rebates, as it aims to pay back some of the money lost.
After the mysterious hack, Cryptopia failed to disclose the amount of cryptos stolen from its clients. This led many observers and experts alike to formulate their own figures, further heightening the unrest. Analytics firm Elementus estimated the hackers had made away with $16 million worth of Ether and ERC-20 tokens. They didn’t examine other blockchains such as Bitcoin Core (BTC) and XRP.
However, a week ago, the exchange clarified the details:
“Update: We are continuing to work on assessing the impact incurred as a result of the hack in January. Currently, we have calculated that worst case 9.4% of our total holdings was stolen. Please keep an eye on our page for further updates today.”
It remains to be seen whether Cryptopia has done enough to attract traders back to its platform. Granted, hackers can target any exchange, including the giants such as Bitfinex. However, Cryptopia’s handling of the attack left much to be desired. The communication was slow and withheld most of the details. This left clients in the dark on just how extensive the hack was.
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