On its official Twitter account, the Cobinhood crypto exchange spreads the word that it is about to shut down for a month to get its accounts’ balances audited.
Funds are ‘SAFU’
The platform promises that the funds will remain safe and investors and traders will be able to access them as soon as the platform opens again – on February 10.
The exchange asks users not to make any deposits in order not to lose their money permanently.
In the comment thread, some users are assuming that this might be the end of Cobinhood's operations on the market.
COBINHOOD Exchange is shutting down and auditing all accounts' balances from Jan 10 to Feb 9 in 2020. It will be re-opened on Feb 10, 2020. All COBINHOOD users can then retrieve their funds accordingly. Please DO NOT make any deposits; it may result in permanent loss.
— COBINHOOD (@COBINHOOD) January 10, 2020
An easier start than in 2019
2020 seems to be off to a lighter start when it comes to crypto exchanges than 2019 was. Last year started with a scandal on the Canadian QuadrigaCX exchange caused by the death of its CEO Gerald Cotton, who died in a hospital while travelling to India.
It can be said that Cotton took the private keys to his investors’ money with him to the grave since they remained in his encrypted laptop – around $190 mln owed to 115 investors and no one was able to access them and, therefore, the money.
The investigation was long and hard. The most recent news of this was the requirement of the investors to have Cotton’s body exhumed to make sure it was not a fraudulent exit as some still believe in it.
After the events with QuadrigaCX continued into 2019, the New Zeland Cryptopia exchange fell a victim to hackers who stole around $2.5 mln in ETH on January 13. The platform immediately shut down for investigation.
This was followed by several more hacker attacks, during which more crypto was stolen from Cryptopia as the customers for some reason kept depositing funds even though the Cryptopia management team warned them not to.
Ultimately, after losing around $15 mln in crypto of investors’ money, Cryptopia decided to go into liquidation.
Arman Shirinyan
Godfrey Benjamin
