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According to The Block, Phillippines based exchange Coin.ph (which I think is very popular among our Filipino members) got exploited on Tuesday and hacker allegedly managed to get away with 12 million XRP. After getting XRP, hacker sent it to OKX and few other crypto exchanges.

Does anyone from Phllipines local has more info about this?

I couldn't find anything on Twitter, whether from Coins.ph or someone else (other than the Block) but looking at their status page[1] it looks like the withdrawals are not functional (degraded performance) so I would imagine they're aware of the issue.

It also looks like they had deposit and withdrawal issues on both the 17th and 18th of the month. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with this.

[1] https://status.coins.ph/

It did not say anything about OKX or WhiteBIT acknowledging whether they tracked the user or allowed the hacker to withdraw from them.  The hacker isn't as smart as a real hacker for he only took XRP of all coins to steal. 

He must be a believer of XRP tech which influencers lied about its Roblox integration. So much hype about XRP and he thought, it was the future. $6M is big though.

I tried to check all the community Coins.ph group and their official Facebook page no one mentioned that Coins.ph was hacked. I just found some users who had their XRP gone or hacked but it's old posts around the year 2019.

So it might be true but I think this is FUD due to the bullish price increase recently about XRP I believe they are trying to manipulate and give a signal that this would drop sooner I'm not sure but this is just my guess.

There’s no news about this from our local social media and even popular news outlet in PH. Coins.ph social media account doesn’t express any announcement while their activity today is just a normal day including some sponsorship.

I’m not sure if the news is delay in our local but there’s no such news like this base on my social media and friends that using it.

Yeah, I coulnd't find anything either so that's why I asked if anyone from our Filipino members have any more info about thiis and it looks like they don't have more info either.


I don't see how hack of $6 million XRP can affect its price in any serious way considering the trading volume XRP has. Who knows, maybe its just another bullshit news from crypto media like the recent Cointelegraph's news about ETF.

I looked at the article posted by block and it seems more like an investigation and yet to be confirmed by the exchange coins.ph and they said they didn't respond yet but on the explorer, the funds were withdrawn from the exchange so if you see the withdrawal on hold for XRP or for every crypto then there is something is going on so better watch out for now and who knows this can actually be true.

Most info from the local crypto media channels was also based on The Block's release. Coins.ph hasn't given any statement as of now so, this verifies nothing from their end. But with the maintenance they've made for a couple of days, this was likely the reason behind that.

Yeah, that's likely the reason behind that maintenance, disabling deposit and withdrawal for so long but they haven't verified it. But one thing for sure is that they've made this maintenance and it was long based on the history that I've used them. Many users have been pissed off by that because they never spoke of any reasons why it took so long.

Yeah, Coins.ph hasn't confirmed the hacking allegations yet, but they also haven't disputed them, which, in my opinion, should have been their first response if the news isn't true.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/10/21/Tw1jH.jpeg
https://x.com/coinsph/status/1715634520739979346?s=20

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/10/21/TwLDg.jpeg
https://x.com/coinsph/status/1715541030127432169?s=20

Besides, the article posted by TheBlock has been updated with a comment from the WhiteBit exchange confirming that they received a request from Coins.ph to freeze the funds.

Yeah, I read the news and we have been discussing it as well in our local boards, before we have a local represented of coins.ph, however, it seems that they are no longer responding, Coins.ph Official Thread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1558587.0)

Although it is considered to be the trail blazing platforms from the Philippines, in the last couple of years there have been a lot of local competition as well and their services have been deteriorating.

Anyhow, I don't store big amounts in the platform, it's centralized and we all know that it's not a good practice.

Will wait though from their official channels if this news is true or not, regardless (they usually takes time to respond), it's a big blow to coins.ph credibility again.

It's surprising that no reliable news outlets have reported on this incident yet, despite it happening yesterday. The amount lost is quite substantial, and one would expect it to be covered by popular TV stations like ABS-CBN, TV5, and GMA. However, there's been no news from these sources. I even tried searching on YouTube and couldn't find any reports from those channels. It's very likely that this is just FUD, a tactic to spread panic now that the market is in bullish mode.

When I saw this post yesterday and the comments that followed, I thought it was a fake news created to cause FUD, but the screenshot shared by FatFork and Coin.ph's silence is beginning to make me to have a rethink. I remembered when a Nigerian exchange, Patricia (https://news.bitcoin.com/hackers-breach-nigerian-crypto-trading-platform-btc-and-naira-assets-compromised/) was hacked, it took them some time to come out and made a public statement, so from coin.ph's body language, it's very likely the news about the hack is true.

BTW, other media outlets are beginning to report about the incident but I don't know how reputable they are.

https://bitpinas.com/business/coins-ph-hacked-12-million-xrp-the-block-report/

First of all, $6M is not such a big amount, it's actually just a drop in the ocean when considering the entire crypto market. Second, Coins.ph is a local exchange, primarily popular in the Philippines and relatively unknown in the rest of the world. According to CoinMarketCap, it is ranked on 470th place (https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coins-pro/) with a daily volume of just over $650,000 (approximately 22 BTC).

Moreover, if these allegations are merely FUD, why haven't they denied them yet? Also, what about the "Your funds are SAFU!" statements on Twitter?

Indeed, quite a peculiar post. It wants to be somewhat reassuring for its users/customers, but by not denying the hack.. everybody can understand whatever they want, even the worse case scenario.
Since I do have the seeds of negativity in my thinking, I will for now assume they did get hacked and didn't want neither to openly admit it (to avoid panic, especially as you said, it's not that a big amount), nor to deny it so they don't get caught lying.

They implicitly want to say that they can handle their loss. But yeah, we can't blame coins.ph completely as they also haven't tried to refute these exploitation allegations so far. There was no big fuss, everything was conducive except for the only withdrawal problem where their customers didn't know what the real reason was.

I was referring to the news from the local TV stations, and that's why I specifically mentioned the station names. These three stations are among the biggest in the Philippines, and the absence of any reports about this incident is quite surprising, especially considering that coins.ph is the first and largest local exchange in the Philippines.

That's a weird response to a direct question. If it was lie, they should have cleared the situation and instead they went with "your funds are safu" narative which only make this whole situation even more suspicious. Maybe it was an inside job so Coins.ph is trying to kinda hide it not to ruin their reputation.


This (alleged) incident didn't happen yesterday, it happened 4 days ago, on Tuesday. Its just that The Block released the news yesterday.

Yikes, this truly sucks. The Philippines is a developing nation rifle with corruption and rampant poverty and if this exchange continues to have some major issues after this or potentially even going insolvent it could affect the lives of people there greatly. Hopefully the exchange doesn't go down before it can fully compensate people that had money deposited.

I'm not going to touch based on the issue if it is a inside job or not.

But I'm trying to piece everything together, maybe the hack had happened more than 4 days ago. I got a message from them on October 14, at 9:53 A.M. Philippine Local Time about a system upgrade.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/10/21/TSOvg.jpeg

And the news was released around the time of the system maintenance.

Still no official notification about this supposedly hack.

I only became aware of the news when I read it on Bitpinas the leading Philippine article site that is dedicated to anything Cryptocurrency in the Philippines, on mainstream media, it's not even mentioned but they mention it if it's related to other payment processors they always broadcast it.
The amount is huge but based on their statement it is manageable, but a loss is still a loss they have not been addressing the issues, and the news is all coming from other exchanges or sources and not from Coins.ph.

I understand Coins.ph claims to have millions of active users and the worst that could happen is for them to panic which will cause massive withdrawals, the PR management of Coins.ph is not giving the real picture of what really happened and this led to speculation, but so far all the features are available I just withdrew funds from my dashboard and checking all the coins listed and all are functional, withdrawal, deposits and trading are all good.

This is pretty confusing. How on earth can they say the loss is manageable when they haven't even confirmed if a hack happened? Saying that almost makes it sound like a hack did go down, and they're just keeping it under wraps for some reason.


It's a simple fix for this potential issue - just be straight with the folks, tell the truth. If there hasn't been a hack, they should put out a public statement to clear up all this FUD.

I wouldn't be surprised if it will took a while for Coins.ph to responds to this news. As a user of Coins.ph, their services really took a turn in the last 5 years or so. Been using since 2017, and their services is quite good that time. And they respond to queries very quick, and when they were acquired and obviously they grew as the Philippines is one of the most crypto friendly nation in the Southeast Asia, and instead of providing good services, many complains and issues started popping up. And with this news of hacks, for sure it will put a dent on crypto in the Philippines specially with regards to Coins.ph security. Recently, if the majority didn't know here, one of the country government website has hacked recently, and then demanding for ransom money. Obviously, the Philippine government didn't pay, resulting to the data surfacing in the dark web. Perhaps this is what Coins.ph is preventing, Philippine crypto regulators coming after them and questioning their security.

They really should, other top exchanges that experienced similar hacks have openly admitted and have come forward to admit the hack, are they threatened because Filipinos have now other options to trade their coins on other local exchanges?
It's obvious they are not comfortable being in this position, they don't want to be straightforward about what happened as a top local Crypto exchange getting hacked.
Let's see in the coming weeks if they are going to announce something related to the hacking, maybe they just waiting to finish their investigation before announcing but by delaying they have undermined their users.

I'm sure a hack has occurred, any service wouldn't allow a commotion among customers for several days because of fake news.
However Coinph should try to divert customers' attention from this incident, or the problem will have to become more complicated with consequences that they'll have to face.

Yeah, FTX was FUD, Celsius was FUD, MtGox was FUD, you do realize that if you label everything you don't like as FUD you end up like an ostrich with his head in the sand who thinks everything is fine even though on the surface a dingo is already marinating his ass?


Yeah, the typical announcement, everything is fine, the money is all there but would other exchanges please freeze all funds coming from our service? We're in complete control but it just somehow happens that somebody else was transferring funds out without knowing!


You mean lie to them... ;)

In that The Block article you can see that XRP transfers from Coins.ph happened on October 17th so I guess that message you got on October 14 might actually be about system upgrade and not trying to cover the alleged hack.


If its just a fud why don't they say so, instead dodging giving straight answer?

This means that they are covering up all the bad things for the sake of their platform as if nothing happened, customers will now be observant because news from outside unexpectedly they will trust customers and make questions.
If Coinsph is diverting all attention to others for this hacking incident they are not so professional and just want to cover up all what happened, still all what happens must be officially reported so that customers know it.

I did try to send them a message and asked for a confirmation, unfortunately, I just get a generic response from them,

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/10/23/TmsTd.jpeg

I'm thinking to make a follow-up email, but most likely I will get the same response though. Not gonna waste my time, but as for me, this is a confirmation that they hacked was true, but they don't want to admit it.

They are regulated, and they have an obligation to inform people about the status of the exchange, whether it's true that it's been hacked or not. However, since they haven't issued an official statement about the hack, there's a possibility that no hack has occurred. I'm not aware of any users who have complained about a loss of their balance, but AFAIK, there haven't been any complaints. Perhaps some users haven't seen the news or heard the rumors that may be affecting their operations, which is why they might not be taking it seriously.

---

I prefer not to draw any conclusions, as the exchange itself hasn't confirmed that a hack has indeed occurred. Besides the article we previously read, there are no other reliable sources that can confirm the incident, and it's possible that coins.ph is attempting to keep this matter hidden. Until they issue an official announcement, I'm skeptical that it has happened. However, it is concerning that they haven't provided sufficient reassurance to their community to prevent people from panicking.

---

They have responded, but the reply wasn't entirely satisfying, as it seemed like an automated message assuring the safety of funds. Therefore, it's a matter of personal choice whether to trust their response or engage in speculation. Ultimately, it's up to us how we approach this matter.

We all know people don't want an automated response when it comes to exchanges where they are trading, and these kinds of responses will make the users think that something is not right, since it was not covered by mainstream media they think that the majority of users are not aware of it so they prefer not to announce so there will be no panic.

But if they see that there are requests or demands for transparency they will yield to their users, their competitors are improving so they should value their users' opinions.

The only government department that could dig into this matter is the central bank as they are regulated by BSP. Given the alleged huge amount lost, they really should have launched an investigation right away. Maybe we'll wait a bit to see if any news surfaces about it, but if a whole month passes and there's still no word on this, I guess we can safely assume it's just some FUD.

I know that they responded, but as I said they decided to avoid giving straight answer which would be a logical thing to do rather than giving "funds are safu" whihc we heard many times before in the past and it runed out funds were far from safe.  As a matter of fact, it kinda reminds me of Justin Sun tweet (https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1706311251024822748) from few weeks ago when HTX (ex Huobi) got hacked, just without admission part.


That's true. Unfortunately, an everage crypto enthusiast learned nothing from FTX/Celsius downfall.

There's an update regarding this news and hack, Chainalysis confirms that it's actually Coins.ph products (XRP) that has been hacked when this news breaks.

From this article: 12 Million XRP Reportedly Stolen From Coins.ph Now Labeled in Chainalysis Products (https://bitpinas.com/business/xrp-coins-ph-chainalysis/)


On the last quote, you can see that amount came from their funding last year and it's 20% and kind a huge if that's from their investors.