Gatecoin, the regulated cryptocurrency exchange is investigating a potential leak of funds in its hotwallet, employees of Gatecoin detected last night what appeared to be suspicious transactions, and decided to shut down the exchange to prevent further losses.
Gatecoin tweeted a message announcing that the exchange’s website was down due to the high risk of leakage in one of the Hotwallets -the wallets that hold funds for day to day transactions-. The website has been showing a maintenance sign for hours and encouraging the users to follow the twitter account for further updates.
The company released a statement:
Dear Users, Last night Asia time, we suspected a potential leak on our hot wallets. Therefore, we decided to shut down the exchange and ports in order to minimise further potential losses, and we are conducting a full forensic investigation to identify the root of the issue. This is why Gatecoin’s user interface and API are currently offline. Please be sure that we will do our best effort to investigate, fix the issue ASAP and we will cover for the potential losses. We store 95% of users’ crypto-asset funds in multi-sig cold storage vaults, so your funds are safe. Please accept our deepest apologies for this disruption. We will keep you regularly updated on the progress made by our team. Sincerly, The Gatecoin Team
Gatecoin has reassured that the customer’s funds are safe and that the company will compensate for any losses in user’s wallets. Some Reddit users have been sharing information of the potential hack, user Hitchcott posted that, according to Gatecoin CEO’s Aurelien Menant the Digix and The DAO tokens are safe. The reddit account of one of the employees at Gatecoin said:
Unfortunately the ETH leaked was on hotwallets and we’re investigating the source and root of the breach. Fiat are stored in segregated client accounts at major reputable banks. We will ensure all customers are compensated for any missing ETH.
This hack comes after the Gatecoin exchange suffered from a major blackout of its server infrastructure, the problem left Gatecoin’s customers without the ability to use the website.
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