While this initial payout is very large, Grant Thornton stated that even more distributions are planned. The firm will follow an approved process, including setting cut-off dates, before distributing the remaining funds to account holders. There is also the possibility of additional “top-up” distributions, which could allow users to receive up to 100% of their holdings by reallocating unclaimed funds from those who have not registered on the claims portal. In case the funds are still on the exchange, the easiest way for Cryptopia would be to allow users to withdrawal their assets from the exchange. But then there are still the liquidators and other creditors/large stakeholders that need to be paid first, leaving not much for the traders. Around 960,000 former Cryptopia users are being informed, and those registering are being asked to confirm some account details to ensure only verified users of the exchange make claims.
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- A second hack occurred on January 28th, where an additional US$284,000 from 17,000 wallets was captured.
- Also, you should make your claim on the so-called claimant portal and report your loss.
- Dawson has said that he and Clark were compelled to build Cryptopia after negative experiences with other exchanges, and “a desire to build the website that we ourselves wanted to use.”
More than four years on from the beginning of the Cryptopia exchange liquidation process, liquidators Grant Thornton have yet to return any account funds to Cryptopia’s customers. The liquidation process which began in May 2019, following the all-encompassing exchange hack of January 2019, remains ongoing. Grant Thornton first began referring account holders to the Cryptopia claims portal in December of 2020.
Through her writing, Danielle aims to inspire readers to delve deeper into the weird and wonderful realm of digital finance. Binance.US initially launched in 2019 to provide regulated crypto trading services in the United States. However, the platform faced hurdles in 2023, beginning with a lawsuit from the SEC in June. The SEC accused Binance of failing to register Binance.US as an exchange, which led to the suspension of USD deposits.
Also, you should make your claim on the so-called claimant portal and report your loss. Plus, the holders will be paid in the cryptocurrency they had in their accounts, rather than in fiat currency. On May 15th, 2019, the Cryptopia team announced that the company was going into liquidation, which meant it was going to sell all the assets to dissolve and finally close the company. The liquidation process was going to be carried out by Grant Thornton New Zealand. After further investigations, Cryptopia announced that 9.4% of the assets stored on its servers were stolen.
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Blockchain games are often viewed as unsustainable since many such games were launched, got hyped, saw assets rise in value, but eventually their values collapsed and players lost interest. There was no long-term plan to attract and hold new players.However, Cryptopia has been planned from the start to have a stable and self-sustaining economy. By the way, players are free to start their own DEX in Cryptopia and create trading pairs as they see fit. According to the public notice by Grant Thornton, the investigation of the case may take months together for its completion. The exchange also announced that they will not allow its customers to withdraw any currencies until the investigation process is complete. This message again scared its users, as it might be hacked again or the team is bailing-out on its customers due to its previous hack.
This number was equal to 23 million NZD or 16 million USD at the time and was considered to be the biggest scam ever pulled in New Zealand. The platform suffered a security breach on January 14, 2019, causing significant losses to users from over 183 countries around the globe. The Cryptopia team immediately informed the legal authorities, suspended trading activity on the platform, and took Cryptopia into maintenance mode. However, it was later found out that the hacks were still going on even after the police had been involved. On the contrary, the technology has been rock solid in keeping an immutable ledger by recording every single transaction ever made. However, especially at the early stages of the crypto hype, the pitfalls of blockchain technology weren’t discovered yet, and measures against cybercrime weren’t regularly implemented.
Despite the good news Cryptopia victims received in 2020 on their ownership over the cryptopia withdrawal virtual assets, the company still hasn’t refunded the entirety of the loss that occurred due to the alleged hack. Because Cryptopia operated as a centralized exchange (CEX), it kept custody of its users’ funds and had access to all of the private keys. Aside from the obvious risks of cryptocurrency trading, such as the high volatility in Bitcoin and altcoin prices, there are other risks you need to be aware of when keeping your assets on the blockchain. This isn’t because blockchain technology is inherently risky or vulnerable to fraud or scams. The current plan by Grant Thorton is to return assets to account holders by the end of 2024.
This was mainly done to track whether assets attained during the hack were shifted to exchanges and then sold or laundered. They have also continually worked with NZ police over the last four and a half years. At the time of its collapse, Cryptopia had 800,000 users with a positive balance and well over US$100 million worth of funds trusted to it. Additionally, most of Cryptopia’s users were international, complicating this process. You can access the Identity Verification from User Center – KYC or access it directly from your dashboard.
New Zealand’s Cryptopia pays back $225m to account holders after liquidation
By October, Binance.US declared its transition to a crypto-only exchange after updating its terms of service. Coinbase’s derivatives platform was launched in 2022, and has become a big driver of growth by offering cryptocurrency futures like nano Bitcoin and nano Ethereum contracts to its U.S. users. The platform also lists futures tied to meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu (SHIB), alongside commodities like oil and gold. Coinbase Advanced, the professional trading platform offered by Coinbase, experienced remarkable growth in 2024. The platform recorded a 191% increase in trading volumes and a 77% rise in user numbers. Cryptopia was founded in 2014, and was once a major international cryptocurrency exchange based in New Zealand.
The terms of Cryptopia’s engagement, as delineated in their original terms and conditions, serve as a bulwark against the unauthorized assignment or transfer of account holder entitlements. This stance is reinforced by legal precedents, including a notable 2020 directions application, which clarified that cryptocurrencies were held in trust by Cryptopia for its account holders. The liquidators will give account holders notice of the soft cut-off date in the coming days. Danielle du Toit, a criminology honors graduate, has channeled her curiosity and analytical mindset into exploring the fascinating and ever-evolving world of cryptocurrency. Her work combines a keen investigative eye with a love for storytelling, making even the most intricate aspects of crypto accessible and engaging.
You need to sign up to the claims portal below if you haven’t already and you’ll receive email updates from their team. From 14 to 17 January, $16 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from the exchange. Following a police investigation that took months, Cryptopia finally reopened again mid-April, but it appeared to be only for one month.
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- Cryptopia was a digital asset exchange operated by Rob Dawson and Adam Clark between 2014 and 2019.
- The liquidation process was going to be carried out by Grant Thornton New Zealand.
- Just like Binance or Coinbase, Cryptopia used to be a cryptocurrency exchange platform.
- The decision was firstly driven by the fact that cryptocurrency is “property” for the purposes of the Companies Act 1993.
- Through her writing, Danielle aims to inspire readers to delve deeper into the weird and wonderful realm of digital finance.
- This message again scared its users, as it might be hacked again or the team is bailing-out on its customers due to its previous hack.
The liquidators of the now-defunct crypto exchange Cryptopia started the distribution of funds to users who were affected by a major hack that happened nearly six years ago. On Dec. 20, Grant Thornton, the firm overseeing Cryptopia’s liquidation, announced that over 10,000 verified account holders started receiving payouts. These distributions consist of Bitcoin (BTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE), totaling approximately 400 million New Zealand dollars ($225 million). After a court ruling in 2020, Cryptopia’s users were declared entitled to their funds, with reimbursement in cryptocurrency rather than fiat currency. The liquidation process is ongoing, with Grant Thornton currently in the claim registration stage, urging affected users to file their claims to recover their assets.
Grant Thornton urged any of the remaining Cryptopia account holders to complete the registration process to qualify for future distributions. The liquidators also confirmed that additional distributions for some of the newly verified users are expected to take place in the coming year. If you are one of the victims, we offer our condolences and advise you to keep yourself posted on the latest updates regarding the liquidation of the platform. If you are not, we hope that you take a valuable lesson from this story on the risks that come with storing your assets on exchange platforms.
David Ruscoe and Russell Moore, were the two officials from Grant Thornton who carried the liquidation process. The thieves not only gained access to one private key, but also to thousands of them . Along with losing their funds, the Cryptopia exchange also lost access to all of them.
Cryptopia was one of the most popular crypto exchanges back in the day before it faced a massive security breach in 2019. The platform was hacked, and a considerable amount of digital assets was stolen from the wallets of the platform users. The case of Cryptopia liquidation has been going on for a couple of years now and in this article, we will look at how you can get back your lost assets from the platform and learn what happened to the exchange.
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He also mentioned plans for new product releases and strategic partnerships to enhance the platform’s infrastructure, including expanded custody offerings and improved wallet solutions. Reed is optimistic about the future, and invited users to participate in what he described as a comeback story for the ages. James Page, previously the lead writer at Crypto Head and a registered psychologist, brings a unique perspective to the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. In order to be eligible to receive your assets back in the asset transfer stage, which hasn’t started yet, what you need to do is to fill in the claim acceptance form through the claims portal. Currently, the process is still in the claim registration stage, as the liquidator company says they need to collect more claims to proceed forward. So, if you are one of the victims of the Cryptopia hack, we strongly recommend you join the claim registration process.