BitForex, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Hong Kong, has suddenly suspended withdrawals for an undisclosed reason. This decision comes after approximately $56 million worth of cryptocurrencies were withdrawn from the exchange’s wallets. The halt in transactions was announced in a post by ZachXBT, an on-chain investigator, who revealed that the outflows occurred across three hot wallets just before the suspension took effect.
BitForex users have reported various issues with their accounts, including difficulties accessing them and a lack of asset visibility on the dashboard. Some users have even received pop-up messages stating that they are blocked from accessing the exchange’s website. Cointelegraph also encountered the same problem when attempting to visit the BitForex website, although certain pages of the site, such as a January 31 announcement about the departure of CEO Jason Luo, were still accessible at the time of reporting.
BitForex was once one of the leading global crypto exchanges in terms of capitalization, with a daily trading volume of approximately $2.6 billion in cryptocurrencies in September 2023. However, CoinMarketCap currently does not provide live data on BitForex. In April 2023, the exchange faced accusations from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) for violating the country’s fund settlement laws by operating without proper registration. Since then, BitForex has not attracted much attention from regulators or the media.
In a similar vein, another Hong Kong-based exchange called Atom Asset Exchange (AAX) recently moved around $55.6 million worth of Ether (ETH) from its wallets. AAX ceased operations on November 13, 2022, just two days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. Following the shutdown, AAX’s former CEO Thor Chan and board member Haoming Liang were arrested by Hong Kong police. The founder of AAX, whose identity remains unknown, is allegedly still on the run with 230 million Hong Kong dollars ($29.41 million) belonging to users, as well as the private keys that provide access to the exchange wallets.
Meanwhile, in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), Solana’s stablecoin volume has been experiencing a surge thanks to the efforts of automated trading bots. These bots have been actively trading the stablecoin on various DeFi platforms, boosting its trading volume and bringing attention to Solana’s ecosystem.