HitBTC is struggling with multiple issues and signs of fraud

xoorl (25)in #cryptocurrencies • 7 years ago (edited)

Cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC is facing various issues. Dating back to at least the 2nd of December 2017. The exchange struggles to communicate with it's users, has had multiple problems with deposits and withdrawals, signs of market manipulation and even multiple cases of fraudulent activity have been seen. While in the mean time they have added a deposit fee of a staggering 0.003 BTC (approximately 40 USD at the time of writing) and upped their withdrawal fee to 10%.

Starting on the 2nd of December 2017 some strange activity is being seen at HitBTC. The Ethereum based token AMM immediately dropped a stunning 99.85% after listing on the exchange, while on all other exchanges (having listed the token before HitBTC) the price was barely affected. A couple of days after, the price rose a staggering 118,900% on HitBTC while staying relatively stable on other exchanges once again.

Users of the exchange were able to deposit more AMM, but unable to withdraw any. Suspected is that HitBTC deliberately sold many more tokens than they had in store. While after the big sell-off, they artificially pumped the price to extreme amounts.

Many users of the exchange have been trying to contact support, through various channels, trying to get at least some explanation. But to no avail. HitBTC has yet to clarify what really happend here.

Deposit and withdrawal issues of other crypto-assets have not been going smoothly since then. Some cryptocurrencies and tokens do have the ability to deposit and withdraw, while others haven't. Which crypto-assets are able to deposit/withdraw varies on a day to day basis, again with no explanation from HitBTC.

Lawsuit

The, rather new, Ethereum based token of the Cappasity platform has also been facing issues with their listing on HitBTC, and is now delisted from the exchange.

Cappasity's token CAPP was having multiple issues with the exchange from the start of their listing. When their withdrawals from HitBTC were disabled too, the team announced in their Telegram channel that the exchange had to solve the issues quickly or they would request their token to be delisted.

Right after this announcement, strange things happened. The exchange is alleged to have hired multiple persons to announce that the CAPP token is a scam in Cappasity's Telegram chat, while they also to have contacted members of the group individually. They came up with fake evidence that the Cappasity team has been selling off their 18% holdings, while in fact the team has recently distributed these allocated tokens to their team members. These tokens are locked for trading, and only after 2 years they will be available for trading as mentioned in their whitepaper.

Cappasity has announced in their telegram group they will file a lawsuit against HitBTC.

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Sources:

#blockchain #exchange #fraud #hitbtc