Amid all the market action, Poloniex – the largest altcoin exchange – has been hit with a sophisticated DDOS attack. While the exchange was able to mitigate the issue, many users are still reporting problems executing trades and withdrawing Bitcoins. Users are complaining that hours later their withdrawals still haven’t shown up in their wallets, while Poloniex hasn’t officially admitted to the problem, the moderators are asking users to submit support tickets.
The DDoS attack started last night as the exchange was inaccessible for a number of hours. Poloniex acknowledged the problem by posting a tweet from their official account:
DDoS; we're working to mitigate.
— Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) May 9, 2017
While the DDoS mitigation techniques worked, the exchange is still having issues. Some members on Whalepool claim that buy orders were suspended, however we didn’t find evidence of those claims. Furthermore, users on the chatbox are complaining of both deposits and withdrawals not going through, Poloniex hasn’t acknowledged that issue yet.
As Bitcoin’s price keeps rising with no end in sight, all alternative cryptocurrencies are caught in a bloodbath. A single look at the Poloniex markets shows that every single coin is in the red:
Furthermore, a few markets are also offline. According to Mirai, a moderator of Poloniex:
BCN & XRP wallets are currently undergoing maintenance and should be back as soon as the team is done.
Yesterday evening and late afternoon many users reported 502 bad gateway errors. It is unknown if the DDoS is a response to the declining altcoin markets, looking to create even more panic and push the price farther down. Due to the inability to access the exchange, as soon as the mitigation tactics were completed many traders went on to sell their stash and tried to withdraw their funds. To add insult to injury many of those withdrawals still haven’t gone through.
Moreover, users are complaining of funds being frozen. One user claimed :
“I have about 400ETH worth, frozen.”
Freezing accounts, suspending withdrawals, and downtimes are extremely detrimental to the exchange’s reputation at a critical time like this. Poloniex did not immediately respond to our inquiry.
Now is as good time as any to remind users to never store large amounts on an exchange. It is better to keep a wallet on your desktop with your portfolio of altcoins as no amount of DDoS or downtime will be able to take those coins away from you. On the other hand, if you leave the coins on an exchange, chances are when panic ensues and it comes time to make some traders, the coins will be inaccessible.
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