Crypto Exchange Cryptopia Goes Offline After a Major Hack

By Swati Kishore

Cryptopia, the New Zealand-based digital currency exchange, has been taken down after a major hack.

Cryptopia Exchange announced the development in the morning today on January 15, 2019, by tweeting from its official Twitter handle. As per the tweet, the exchange suffered a security breach on January 14, 2019.

The exchange further elaborated in the official announcement that the exchange was put into maintenance as soon as the hack was identified by the staff.

The official announcement reveals that appropriate governmental bodies such as the High Tech Crimes Unit and the NZ Police have been involved in the hacking crime. The tweet ended with a note saying that trading will be suspended until the investigation is being carried out and that the crypto exchange will keep the users updated on the developments.

“Until this has been carried out, The Cryptopia Exchange will remain in maintenance mode, with trading suspended. We are committed to getting this resolved as quickly as possible and will keep you all updated every step of the way.”

There is still no announcement on the cryptocurrencies which have been affected, neither any information on the total amount of loss or if any measures will be taken to refund the traders.

The website of the exchange is currently down, and only a notice that reads “Cryptopia is currently in unscheduled maintenance mode. We will be back soon,” can be found.

Interestingly, Whale Alert account on Twitter revealed something fishy in a series of tweets last Saturday. The tweets explained that Centrality (CENNZ) and Ethereum (ETH) tokens worth a total of 3.26 million were apparently transferred to an unknown wallet from the Cryptopia Exchange on January 13, 2019.

Since Cryptopia has not given any clarification, it remains unclear whether this movement of funds was carried out by the exchange itself, or if it was a part of the hacking attempt. Let’s wait and watch to see how soon Cryptopia can resume its operations, and if any information on the losses and the process of refund is revealed in the days to come.