We have seen multiple initial coin offerings suffer mysterious hacks and other problems after their token sales ended. It is one of the major issues associated with this particular industry. Titanium, a relatively new ICO, has fallen victim to the theft of 16 million ICO tokens. It seems this may have been an inside job, although that has not been confirmed as of right now.
Titanium ICO Experiences Major Issues
Even though most people haven’t even heard of the Titanium ICO, that is not what matters here. It is another initial coin offering which seemingly did not take the proper security precautions. It is uncanny how many such projects exist today, as this is not the first time a project has had its site hacked, funds stolen, or is forced to deal with malicious actors. Rest assured it will not be the last time we see such an incident occur either.
The Titanium team issued a major warning to all its investors yesterday. In the communique, the team explained that 16 million BAR tokens had been stolen from the company’s wallets. While that is rather troublesome, it also shows this may very well have been an inside job by one of the initial coin offering’s team members. That hasn’t been confirmed as of right now, but it poses a lot of problems for the people who invested in this project.
With 16 million tokens having been stolen, the Titanium team has a lot of issues to sort out. Considering that this theft represents “a large part of the signature token supply”, it is evident immediate action is more than warranted. The last thing this nascent ICO needs is someone dumping their tokens across all exchanges and crippling its value in the long term. None of this would have been an issue if the team had taken proper precautions, but that is a topic for another discussion.
For now, it seems the Titanium team will take the logical approach of creating a secondary token by forking the original one. This new token will have to be integrated into the project’s infrastructure, though that shouldn’t be too difficult. All existing token holders will receive the new token at a 1:1 ratio, which is only normal. Whether users will be issued these new tokens will depend on if they had already moved their tokens out of the website’s wallets or not. If they did, a form will need to be filled in with specific details.
For now, the trading of BAR tokens is to be suspended on all of the supporting exchanges. It remains unclear if all trading platforms will adhere to this request before any major damage is done, although it seems safe to assume that they will. This hack will not affect the team’s plan to release their MVP in March, which is one positive thing to come out of all this.
Unfortunately, this is another example of how initial coin offerings pose risks in many ways. Not every product will work in the long run, and some projects are outright scams. In the case of Titanium and a few others, the lack of proper wallet security during and after the ICO has had major repercussions for all parties involved. It remains unclear who is responsible for this hack and if they will be punished for their actions.
