Cryptopia gets green light to reopen after police investigations

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Police in New Zealand have given the green light to Cryptopia exchange to reopen “whenever they want.” This is after the police concluded their investigations into the highly controversial hack. Details about the hack still remain unclear, with the management of Cryptopia failing to disclose the amount of cryptos stolen.

Despite the conclusion of investigations, Cryptopia doesn’t seem too eager to reopen. Located in the east coast city of Christchurch in New Zealand, Cryptopia has kept mum over when it intends to open up shop again.

As reported by local media outlets, the management has refused to answer questions posed by the media about the extent of the damage. The website is still offline, with the social media channels having been dormant in the past few weeks.

However, Cryptopia can no longer blame the police investigations for their delay. Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, detective Greg Murton explained:

“We have finished the main part of the work required by the High Tech Crime Group at Cryptopia’s business premises, although HTCG staff remains there finishing up aspects of their work. Cryptopia management has full access to its facilities and business premises and the Police investigation is not preventing their business from getting up and running again.”

The police kept quiet the the details of their investigations. Therefore, it’s still unclear how much the hackers made away with. They also withheld details on whether they were pressing any charges against the embattled exchange.

Murton commended the Cryptopia staff for their cooperation throughout the investigation process. They further refuted earlier reports stating that they had stormed into the Cryptopia premises. They had been alerted of the hack by the Cryptopia management and took swift action to thwart further damage.

The report comes just days after an analysis revealed that the Cryptopia hackers have already cashed out over $3.2 million of the stolen tokens. According to Elementus, a blockchain analytics firm, the hackers had cashed out on 15 different crypto exchanges. The majority of this had been on Etherdelta where the hackers cashed out $2.07 million. Binance, KuCoin, Bibox, HitBTC and Huobi were the other exchanges they used.

A month after the hack, we are yet to know the full details of the hack. Some reports have given different figures, with most of them being speculative. The most comprehensive report so far has been by the New York-based Elementus. 

This report indicated that the hackers had stolen $16 million worth of ERC-20 tokens. Ethereum, Dentacoin, Oyster Pearl, Lisk and Centrality were the main coins stolen.