Hotbit exchange suspends deposits, withdrawals and trading

[bbc.reporter]

I saw this breaking news on social media and it appears that much of the people there want to create the fud and make it appear that all of Hotbit's senior team members have been involved in criminal financial activity. I thought it was real, however, this announcement from their website has announced that it was only a former employee and Hotbit is cooperating with the authorities to solve the problem.



Announcement on the Suspension of Hotbit Website Service on August 10th, 2022

Dear Respected Hotbit Users, Because a former Hotbit management employee who left Hotbit in April this year was involved in a project last year that law enforcement authorities now think is suspected of violating criminal laws.

So, a number of Hotbit senior managers have been subpoenaed by law enforcement since the end of July and are assisting in the investigation. Furthermore, law enforcement has frozen some funds of Hotbit, which has prevented Hotbit from running normally. Therefore, Hotbit has to suspend trading, deposit, withdrawal and funding functions.

All user’s assets and data on Hotbit are secure and correct. Please wait for our further announcement about the specific recovery time of our service. Hotbit hereby declares: Hotbit and the rest employees of Hotbit's management are not involved in the project and have no knowledge of the illegal information involved in the project. And we are still actively cooperating with the law enforcement authorities in their investigations. All user’s assets are safe. For more details, please visit

https://hotbit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8074249353495

Source https://www.hotbit.io/maintenance

[Charles-Tim]

I just wonder the inconvenience those that are using Hotbit to trade will be right now. Also some people like leaving coins on exchanges, which is not right at all, if it is not your key, it is not your coin, exchanges do not give your any private key, they have it all and have control over your money. The government freeze some funds of the exchange (as we heard about it), but it could even be all the funds that has been frozen, leaving Hotbit customers in panic. People that will mostly leave their coins on exchanges are traders, definitely they will all be significantly affected by this.

[AbuBhakar]

So, a number of Hotbit senior managers have been subpoenaed by law enforcement since the end of July and are assisting in the investigation. Furthermore, law enforcement has frozen some funds of Hotbit, which has prevented Hotbit from running normally.

I expect Some Hotbit customer who notice part i bolded might be angry with the fact they suspend all withdraws. Additionally, legal investigation could take really long time which sucks for both Hotbit and Hotbit customer.

For sure, It will take months or even years since the accused will surely not gonna give up easily his case. What I don’t understand was why does the Hotbit need to halt withdrawal while only partial funds is needed to be freeze and customers balance is surely not part of it? I think they are using the customers balance as hostage and use as collateral damage once the investigation will be in favor with the law enforcement.

This is sucks! This can happened on any exchange even Binance. Not your keys not your coin indeed.

[malcovi2]

So, a number of Hotbit senior managers have been subpoenaed by law enforcement since the end of July and are assisting in the investigation. Furthermore, law enforcement has frozen some funds of Hotbit, which has prevented Hotbit from running normally.

I expect Some Hotbit customer who notice part i bolded might be angry with the fact they suspend all withdraws. Additionally, legal investigation could take really long time which sucks for both Hotbit and Hotbit customer.

For sure, It will take months or even years since the accused will surely not gonna give up easily his case. What I don’t understand was why does the Hotbit need to halt withdrawal while only partial funds is needed to be freeze and customers balance is surely not part of it? I think they are using the customers balance as hostage and use as collateral damage once the investigation will be in favor with the law enforcement.

This is sucks! This can happened on any exchange even Binance. Not your keys not your coin indeed.

Probably they are using their customers money to make a profit or they liquidated the long-calls because they dont have the money to pay them. If this criminal activity is really real why didnt a news agency aired this already, it should have been covered because there is law enforcement involved there should be 1 or 2 bored reporters would snoop around the area.

[bbc.reporter]

So, a number of Hotbit senior managers have been subpoenaed by law enforcement since the end of July and are assisting in the investigation. Furthermore, law enforcement has frozen some funds of Hotbit, which has prevented Hotbit from running normally.

I expect Some Hotbit customer who notice part i bolded might be angry with the fact they suspend all withdraws. Additionally, legal investigation could take really long time which sucks for both Hotbit and Hotbit customer.

Agreed, however, Hotbit can make a request to open the exchange for withdrawals. I reckon this is what the authorities should allow the exchange to do after knowing which funds and how much should be frozen. In any case, this is a warning sign for everyone and also to stop using this exchange. The skeptical me thinks there is something more behind their blog post.

[examplens]

I just wonder the inconvenience those that are using Hotbit to trade will be right now. Also some people like leaving coins on exchanges, which is not right at all, if it is not your key, it is not your coin, exchanges do not give your any private key, they have it all and have control over your money. The government freeze some funds of the exchange (as we heard about it), but it could even be all the funds that has been frozen, leaving Hotbit customers in panic. People that will mostly leave their coins on exchanges are traders, definitely they will all be significantly affected by this.

there is not too much stress here for the Hotbit users. (I am one of them). a similar thing happens with them approximately every 2-3 months, "maintenance due to potential hack". We are not particularly surprised by the current situation, I believe that the majority of users did not hold any serious amount of money on this exchange.
occasionally I have some altcoins that are easiest for me to sell on Hotbit. Deposit altcoin, sell it, withdraw whatever. that's all.
to be honest, so far not a single Hotbit hack has sampled the theft of money.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This part of the quote made me roll my eyes so hard, my optic nerves are probably damaged:

Hotbit hereby declares: Hotbit and the rest employees of Hotbit's management are not involved in the project and have no knowledge of the illegal information involved in the project. And we are still actively cooperating with the law enforcement authorities in their investigations. All user’s assets are safe.

So they're basically declaring their innocence on their home page, which I find to be bizarre at best (in addition to the brief explanation about some rogue member of Hotbit management).  If this isn't sketchy, then there's no definition of the term.

And what's up with this generic corporate-art piece:



Everything about this reeks of being unprofessional, and that's not even including the fact that they don't give anyone any idea of when customers' funds might become available for withdrawal, just that they're "safe". 

Didn't some similar crap happen with Hotbit a year or two back, or am I confusing them with Hitbit or another similarly-named exchange?  I remember posting something about it, because I'd used the exchange once for an obscure altcoin (but I'd have to do some serious sifting of posts to find it, and I'm way too lazy for all that).

[Uruhara]

This part of the quote made me roll my eyes so hard, my optic nerves are probably damaged:

Hotbit hereby declares: Hotbit and the rest employees of Hotbit's management are not involved in the project and have no knowledge of the illegal information involved in the project. And we are still actively cooperating with the law enforcement authorities in their investigations. All user’s assets are safe.

So they're basically declaring their innocence on their home page, which I find to be bizarre at best (in addition to the brief explanation about some rogue member of Hotbit management).  If this isn't sketchy, then there's no definition of the term.

And what's up with this generic corporate-art piece:



Everything about this reeks of being unprofessional, and that's not even including the fact that they don't give anyone any idea of when customers' funds might become available for withdrawal, just that they're "safe". 

Didn't some similar crap happen with Hotbit a year or two back, or am I confusing them with Hitbit or another similarly-named exchange?  I remember posting something about it, because I'd used the exchange once for an obscure altcoin (but I'd have to do some serious sifting of posts to find it, and I'm way too lazy for all that).

I don't think a former employee could possibly work alone in committing fraud. there must still be someone in the hotbit team who is helping from the inside. I think hotbit is trying to cover up their mistake. because if this error gets leaked then they are afraid of losing all their users and they are afraid of ending up in the legal table.
there must be a reason behind the freezing of some assets by the legal authorities. This reason explains that there is involvement in it. because if it's a former employee who just made a mistake then I don't think there is any reason to freeze some hotbit assets by the legal authorities. whether this is drama or whatever. But I hope the problem will be resolved soon. because I also have assets in hotbit that I need to withdraw.

[BitMaxz]

I'm using hotbit exchange before but I stop using them when I heard many users were stuck on withdrawal and most of the shitcoins are listed there.
I think what we see here is just likely the same as other shady exchanges where most of the coins are useless and exchanges end up scams.

This is why I don't stay holding coins on any shady exchanges I withdraw them right away after I exchange some shitcoin from their exchange.

[bbc.reporter]

@BitMaxz. If you want only to trade without the risk of holding funds being frozen, it might be better for you to trade using Uniswap, Sushiswap are any type of Defi protocol in Ethereum. Pancakeswap and other Defi protocols in Binance Smartchain also has many shitcoins that pump more than 10x. I reckon that it does not matter for you what type of coins to trade? You are there just for trading the pumps?

[Charles-Tim]

This is why I don't stay holding coins on any shady exchanges I withdraw them right away after I exchange some shitcoin from their exchange.

Never mind this, even not only on shady exchanges that is not good for holding coins, all exchanges generally, they are centralized, the exchangea have the full control, not people having coins on the exchange.

@BitMaxz. If you want only to trade without the risk of holding funds being frozen, it might be better for you to trade using Uniswap, Sushiswap are any type of Defi protocol in Ethereum. Pancakeswap and other Defi protocols in Binance Smartchain also has many shitcoins that pump more than 10x.

Is margin and future trading possible on those smart contract decentralized exchanges?

[sunsilk]

Is margin and future trading possible on those smart contract decentralized exchanges?

On pancakeswap, there is the perpetual/futures.

https://perp.pancakeswap.finance/en/futures/BTCUSDT?theme=dark

But on sushiswap and uniswap, it seems that they don't have futures. I think on pancakeswap, this feature was just recently added cmiiw.

[bbc.reporter]

This is why I don't stay holding coins on any shady exchanges I withdraw them right away after I exchange some shitcoin from their exchange.

Never mind this, even not only on shady exchanges that is not good for holding coins, all exchanges generally, they are centralized, the exchangea have the full control, not people having coins on the exchange.

@BitMaxz. If you want only to trade without the risk of holding funds being frozen, it might be better for you to trade using Uniswap, Sushiswap are any type of Defi protocol in Ethereum. Pancakeswap and other Defi protocols in Binance Smartchain also has many shitcoins that pump more than 10x.

Is margin and future trading possible on those smart contract decentralized exchanges?

Yes, there are new Defi trading platforms that offer futures trading with margin of up to 30x leverage. I have not yet tried trading in this platform, however, there are some people in social media that have good testimonials on GMX.

https://gmx.io/

GMX runs on Ethereum's Arbitrum network for faster confirmations and lower fees.

[BitMaxz]

@BitMaxz. If you want only to trade without the risk of holding funds being frozen, it might be better for you to trade using Uniswap, Sushiswap are any type of Defi protocol in Ethereum. Pancakeswap and other Defi protocols in Binance Smartchain also has many shitcoins that pump more than 10x. I reckon that it does not matter for you what type of coins to trade? You are there just for trading the pumps?

How about the fees? The Defi exchanges based on what I heard that the ETH gas fee is still pretty high and actually I tried to swap on some tokens before but I can't seem to find any coins support on Defi exchanges. I usually mine shitcoins before hoping that I can make more profit than mining BTC but I sold that shitcoin due to financial problems and only the Hotbit exchange support that coin that is why I end up using the Hotbit exchange.
I don't usually trade on any Defi most of my trades are in Big exchanges Binance and Coinex I have experienced using other exchanges but due to restrictions and limitations, I can't able to use them.

[2stout]

This does make one wonder what the alleged crime(s) is/are and did such crime(s) put Hotbit's financial solvency at risk, ex- Celsius, Voyager, 3AC.  Or is this a preemptive move to show good face in order to avoid potential long government suspension?

[malcovi2]

This does make one wonder what the alleged crime(s) is/are and did such crime(s) put Hotbit's financial solvency at risk, ex- Celsius, Voyager, 3AC.  Or is this a preemptive move to show good face in order to avoid potential long government suspension?

According to them a former employee of Hotbit was involved in a illegal activity and they are coordinating with mainland China police but I dont believe it since if they are operating in China they would get arrested because China has ban cryptotrading activities.

up until now didn't release any new update regarding the matter, makes it more suspicious.