Bitcoin Forum

Polish crypto exchange Coinroom has disappeared along with customers' funds. Their website and all social channels are MIA as well. Ciphertrace reported that in Q1 of 2019, over 356 million dollars from cryto exchanges were stolen which were all visible losses. However in this case the total amount of funds remain unknown which ultimately means that there are even bigger losses at hand than just the 365 million which is insane.

I am really disappointed to have to keep hearing about these types of exit scams. What do we do?


https://www.thecryptoupdates.com/crypto-exchange-coinroom-disappears-with-customers-funds-website-offline/

All the signs of big ponzi scheme. They collect multi-million dollars from people by showing some false business and one day they disappear with the BIG money.

This is absolutely insane. How can people trust crypto if these types of things continue to happen? This might be a great use case to have AML compliance to any and every business moving forward. Unfortunately there will always be bad actors who want to ruin the overarching goal of cryptocurrency

It's so sad that some folks always try drag the image of crpyto in mud with all these ponzy schemes and scams. This is not fair at all and i think crypto traders and investors should learn a lesson and trade on reliable cryptocurrency exchange that we have known them for years. Don't trade on any new exchange that just comes out of think air.

From the reviews I could read on the internet I noticed Coinroom was a pretty big exchange that was working fine and clients were satisfied with the services they offered. It's so sad to see such big exchanges scamming people even though they've built a good reputation behind their company over the last years. But I guess that's how every scam of this type works, you create you website ,attract as many users as possible and offer then something to trust you, then in the end when everyone thinks everything is going great you suddenly disappear will all the people's money.

I don't know if there is anything we can do. I can see they had a bank transfer deposit/withdraw method but I guess they've been smart enough to use some bank from other country not using their names so that it can't be tracked back to them.

This is the reason why people are thinking of Bitcoin and even cryptocurrency as a scam. People are losing their trust in crypto because of scams and Ponzi scheme. Even people are trying hard to determine what's scam and not, there are still exchanges and scammers who are doing everything to steal their money which is really disappointing.

A quick search for the name reveals that people were writing about the exchange being a scam 2 months ago and at that time the exchange wasn't functioning. They are a bit late with reporting it.

I also think the numbers are too high. I don't see how an exchange that traded less than 5 million usd in crypto every day could have held 365 million dollars in a hot wallet. It doesn't make sense. 

It really doesn’t make sense because you didn’t read it right... 365 million dollars is the (estimated) total amount of BTC stolen on EVERY exchange hack case in Q1 2019. This includes Binance and every other exchange that got hacked or lost funds the last few months. It’s not the amount this nonamer exchange had.

Agree with you, all those looks really nasty and it makes me remember about a casino who run away with 2000 btc some years ago. Looks like isn't hard to mount a fake business making it looks nice and professional for then run away with the money, this has become a scam schema nowadays.

Giving its users to withdraw their assets on an exchange for only one day is sequentially absurd, obvious that they are going to exit scam.

This might their local exchange, never heard of them before.

^^
I never heard of them either and it usually happens to the lesser known ones. They do hold alot of assets to these customers so it is best to treat them just like any of the larger ones which went away this year. But atleast they saying what is going on with their companies on twitter or other platforms to share the latest news and not just vanish without any notice what so ever. ::)

Look at stock markets where all the bad companies are listed and they have collected multi-billion dollars. New investors (buy high) lose money when the company crashes.

This is disgusting. A cryptocurrency exchange is holding a bigger share of the trust and confidence of its members and if it will just go away without a trace then this is a symptom of something wrong with the industry. There must be a solid way that the people behind this self-made heist can be brought to justice. I am not anymore wondering why there are really people who are associating our cryptocurrency industry with scams...because there are really people who are doing it. This is actually the first time I hear about this Coinroom exchange and this is the big reason why we should be careful whom to trust with our coins and tokens. Plus a big lesson to never use any exchange like a wallet. Again, we should emphasize that authorities should do everything they can to get these people behind bars and have them face the music.

This is a scam obviously,the exchange developers only been legit for what months just to gain trust from users to deposit funds and trade to them.And in the end they did this i feel pitty for all users who funds got stolen.
But im wondering can they really file a legal case if cyber sec division of the government will be able to trace whos this thiefs?

Another scam exchange and it's really disappointing especially for those who have just started investing.
We all know how it feels to get scammed knowing that we can't do anything just to get our funds back.
I just wish that users of this exchange won't lose their hope for cryptocurrency.

Another ponzi scheme. But i am not feeling bad for people lost their money.

Ponzi schemes are very easy to understand at first glance. But people are still investing in because of their enormous greed.

Did we read the same article? All you guys talking about Ponzi but i didn't see anything related to Ponzi. It is odd people hold that much of btc in a so low profile exchange but still for Ponzi, website needs to offer their users an earning. Like we are giving %20 interest to all cryptos kind of way. But as i saw from the article it is just a plain exchange, no different than mt.gox or cryptopia.

I also lost little on cryptopia and i feel for victims who lost their money on there.

'Crypto Exchange Coinroom' and people losses! The funds evaporate with a brand like it never existed before and it reveals another scam which rings the wake-up alarm for all to verify the platforms before investing or trusting them.

I’ll agree with you this is not a Ponzi scheme as no returns were promised, and what’s surprising is the amount of money people have deposited with this exchange. Those who are experienced with crypto’s will say the same thing never leave your money on exchanges, cause there’re high chances you’ll loose your money.

Definitely a terrible exit to pocket innocent investor monies over a period of months. All their sites are not accessible anymore. I hope these kind of centralized exchange scam could be prosecuted asap for those poor investors. Its really important to not simply go for local exchanges as they might not registered and operate illegally. Few startups are getting up in my country and those fishy one does introduce lots of 'passive profit' scam to drag investor just simply they have set up an exchange engine. These kind of scam really does harm the genuine small business chipping a part in crypto volatility

This incidence is really disheartening, I still find it difficult to understand why a crypto exchange should disappear with users users funds. With these incessant cases of crypto fraud either through hacks of exchanges or through exit scam, I think is time for some regulation in this space especially in respect to crypto exchange as they seem to hold large funds belonging to numerous users. On a final note, I would love to advice people to trade in exchanges with well know Team.

This is a sad news, people belief especially those who are hesitant about Bitcoin to gear towards negativity about cryptocurrency.  Though case like this also  happen to fiat currency, this event will have a more negative impact to the cryptocurrency adoption since people will think twice before diving into cryptocurrency investment because of such scam.

I can't understand one thing.In the European Union, everything is clearly regulated and controlled.How do crooks get away with it?Or is the control system ineffective?So then why do we need KYC,everyone's talking about...

That is such a big amount, authorities should be alerted so they can start hunting these people and charged, exchanged are more compliant than ICO, so there should be charges to be filed but I'm sure it will not have a big impact on the market as this is considered a local exchange.

This is not the first exist scam in the crypto-exchange sector, and definitely this is not going to be the last one. On top of that, most of the crypto-currency exchanges located in Eastern Europe are having a shady reputation. The users should have taken the necessary precautions by not keeping their coins in the exchange wallet.

Yet another exit scam... In my opinion these should be treated the same as "hackers" stealing coin, ie: share all their addresses and blacklist them immediately. All other exchanges and mixers should cooperate. Until the community organizes and gets ready, these things will keep occurring.

I don't like projects and exchanges from that part of the world. I can only leave some good money on exchanges with a trusted team and from a region that has good business trust.  Keeping fund in ones private wallet remains the best option.

I think there is a few things that all of us could do. First is majorly education and teaching users about how to properly store their funds and why keeping them on exchanges might not be the best way. The second being the need for compliance on the exchange's end. Firms like Ciphertrace are set in place to project any signs of money laundering or suspicious activities. Just like a bank would be able to notify you for any signs of fraudulent activity.

I can't even fathom how these exchange operators manage to get out in the wild without being traced after they vanish. For the most part, they must have been registered as a form of business/service on the country that they operate in, but then we still don't see anyone being nabbed on these grand exit scams apart from a few known people. Heck, up to now we don't even see any progress for dozens of crypto exchanges case. It's just sad that regulations are heading towards 'consumer protection' but doesn't seem to protect people in the event of such scams.

Yes, this company is registered at Polish KRS, its CEO name is known, the share owner name is known as well.

This is sad news! Was this exchange a popular one in Poland? Was it registered or regulated in any way? Are the owners at least publicly known? I think the users should file complaints to the officials (police or something) for cyber-robbery. Perhaps there's still a way to make the owners take responsibility. Poland is in EU, so I think there at least should be a way to make those people criminals and look for them. I am sorry that people lost money there... So sad that it happens quite regularly. I believe it's a good time to recall that exchanges are never a good place to hold money and that it's worth to check the recent reviews right before using an exchange. I was once scammed in a similar way as well, so now I am very cautious.

I am also concerned about the victims of the scam acquisition. Scam is the biggest problem for the crypto market since the past, even investor interest in the ICO has declined in 2018 due to the large number of scammers. Actually we need a platform that can handle scammers or a crypto police where all new crypto platforms have to do this crypto police, hopefully there are platforms like this to reduce scammers.

This is very annoying and heart breaking. These guys should be tracked and should be apprehended. That region is not trusted at all, I don't just leave my funds in any kind of exchange cause thid kind of issues. I feel BD for people who lost their funds.

Possibly that they would still able to sue the company on this issue.If this do happen locally then there would be a chance to locate these scammers.

People do always been advised for a thousand times that never ever store your coins on an exchange yet these things are prone to hacks and scam by owner itself.

Sorry for those people who lost up money on this situation.

It is a shame that the scammers in all ways trying to steal other people's money. This is very spoils the reputation of the crypto currency. I really hope it stops someday.