Cryptopia Cryptocurrency Platform Services and Development

[pinoycash]

..... Like say one month to secure the coins in the wallets and set up a site that allows us to withdraw or you Grant Thornton are fired.

One year - zero results.

Is it 1 year already? Time flies so fast and i think i have no choice but to move on from this mess. If ever they comeback one day and decided to payout the users then its a good news. Until then this will probably drag for more years until there's no more money left for the customers.

[sisquo2121]

Grant Thornton said "Customers did not have individual wallets and it is impossible to determine individual
ownership using just the keys in the wallets. "

This is one of the most absurd statements off all time. Why would the keys in the wallets be used to determine how
many coins customers have.

If a bank takes deposits none of the customers information is stored inside the bank vault. The customers
information would never be written on the dollars bills or gold bars. They are stored in a database on a server.

Likewise the coins wallets are just like bank vaults, but instead of storing bills and gold bars they store
cryptocurrency. They would never store any customer information inside a cryptocurrency wallet. That is stored in
the database on a server.

When Cryptopia was hacked and they closed down for a month and then opened again they knew exactly how much each user
was owed; It is all stored in the database. They didn't have to even look at the wallets to determine that
information.

This just confirms these clowns at Grant Thornton are playing games and must think people will fall for this
nonsense.

This is not Mt Gox who lost 100% of there coins. Cryptopia lost a very small amount of their coins, around 5%,  and
should have easily been able to give back the 95% of the coins that were not stolen.

[JanpriX]

..... Like say one month to secure the coins in the wallets and set up a site that allows us to withdraw or you Grant Thornton are fired.

One year - zero results.

Is it 1 year already? Time flies so fast and i think i have no choice but to move on from this mess. If ever they comeback one day and decided to payout the users then its a good news. Until then this will probably drag for more years until there's no more money left for the customers.

Oh, now that you mentioned it, I think the "hack" happened last January 15, 2019. So in a few days, yeah, we'll have this mess for over a year now. Time flies very fast, right? And yet, their investigation didn't progress at all.  Proceedings/investigations like this that will involve the justice system usually takes too much time and add that this is about crytocurrency, I think will not be solved in the coming years. It could take a decade. 

[guigui371]

This is what one of my friend in Christchurch has written on the FB group we co-admin.
We are both in NZ, in Christchurch (headquarter of Cryptopia).

He does have connections with many crypto enthusiasts in NZ and I totally believe him when he told me that this was an accurate statement from a former employee of cryptopia. 

He identity of the whistleblower will not be revealed, no need to ask.

Today marks the 1 Year Anniversary of the Cryptopia Hack that is one of the biggest Heists in New Zealand History.

There is alot more to this story that is yet to be investigated. An ex employee has approached me anonymously and asked me to post this summary of what is happening or more to the point NOT happening with the investigation.

Makes for some very interesting reading. NZ Police seem to be out of their depth on this one.
____________________________________________________________________
Today marks the one year anniversary of Cryptopia Exchange being hacked. Not a cool anniversary to celebrate, but definitely a reason to take a moment to reflect on the progress the NZ Police have made over this time....

Approximately $25 million dollars was stolen in an "alleged" hack from the exchange.
The Managers of Cryptopia at the time alerted NZ police who immediately took control of the Cryptopia offices with the permission of those Managers, and then refused to allow Cryptopia staff in (aside from those Managers). This allowed the hackers to continue to drain hot wallets with nobody qualified on the inside to stop this.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/…/cryptopia-breach-highlights-gaps-…
Once allowed back into the offices, Cryptopia begun their own investigation and found a wealth of information to aid the NZ Police in finding the hackers. This included;

- proof the hack originated in Christchurch
- Employees who were logged by security cameras and door access to have been in the office shortly before the hack begun, who had no business being in the office at that time and have never been questioned about why. (nb - said employees quickly left the company and are openly anti-cryptopia)
- the employee whose computer was used to access the hack.
(nb - not necessarily saying this employee was responsible, just that it was their log in and user details used in the hack, they have some serious questions to answer about who had access to their laptop considering they were close friends with ex-staff who are openly anti-cryptopia)

After providing the NZ Police this information, Cryptopia expected some possible arrests or at the very least, extensive questioning to happen imminently. Then the Mosque shootings happened. The NZ Police announced they were putting the Cryptopia investigation on hold. Totally fair enough! That was some serious shit in our little city. Except once that investigation seemed somewhat over, the NZ Police admitted that they still hadn't even looked at the evidence they had been given.
Returning after the hack, one of the founders uncovered evidence of embezzlement from a shareholder who had been running the company with the very same managers mentioned above who "discovered" the "alleged" hack, since at least January 2018. He has been very open about this, going to the NZ Police, the Serious Fraud Office, Grant Thorton and then the Media. Still nobody seems to care.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/…/cryptopia-boss-blames-former-shar…
So when are the NZ Police going to look at their evidence? THIS IS THE BIGGEST HEIST IN NEW ZEALAND HISTORY. It would seem if you want to get rich illegally, all you have to do is commit a White-collar crime, because nobody seems to care if you do that! Please note, I say "alleged" because I am a believer that based on the evidence this was an inside job. As an ex-employee of Cryptopia, some would say I am bias to this story or that story, so please note, I am not posting to promote conspiracy theories etc, just that I totally advocate for the police, the SFO, the IRD, the Liquidators, and ANYONE who has the power, to look at the evidence. That is the only way the truth is going to come out, conspiracy or not.

[JollyGood]

Though I might be wrong it seems Grant Thornton are deliberately taking advantage of having a monopoly on the available evidence. With nobody to fact-check them they can do what they like...

You are right, this is not another MtGox so what possible reason could they have for the drama they are creating?

Grant Thornton said "Customers did not have individual wallets and it is impossible to determine individual
ownership using just the keys in the wallets. "

This is one of the most absurd statements off all time. Why would the keys in the wallets be used to determine how
many coins customers have.

If a bank takes deposits none of the customers information is stored inside the bank vault. The customers
information would never be written on the dollars bills or gold bars. They are stored in a database on a server.

Likewise the coins wallets are just like bank vaults, but instead of storing bills and gold bars they store
cryptocurrency. They would never store any customer information inside a cryptocurrency wallet. That is stored in
the database on a server.

When Cryptopia was hacked and they closed down for a month and then opened again they knew exactly how much each user
was owed; It is all stored in the database. They didn't have to even look at the wallets to determine that
information.

This just confirms these clowns at Grant Thornton are playing games and must think people will fall for this
nonsense.

This is not Mt Gox who lost 100% of there coins. Cryptopia lost a very small amount of their coins, around 5%,  and
should have easily been able to give back the 95% of the coins that were not stolen.

[arielbit]

This is what one of my friend in Christchurch has written on the FB group we co-admin.
We are both in NZ, in Christchurch (headquarter of Cryptopia).

He does have connections with many crypto enthusiasts in NZ and I totally believe him when he told me that this was an accurate statement from a former employee of cryptopia. 

He identity of the whistleblower will not be revealed, no need to ask.

Today marks the 1 Year Anniversary of the Cryptopia Hack that is one of the biggest Heists in New Zealand History.

There is alot more to this story that is yet to be investigated. An ex employee has approached me anonymously and asked me to post this summary of what is happening or more to the point NOT happening with the investigation.

Makes for some very interesting reading. NZ Police seem to be out of their depth on this one.
____________________________________________________________________
Today marks the one year anniversary of Cryptopia Exchange being hacked. Not a cool anniversary to celebrate, but definitely a reason to take a moment to reflect on the progress the NZ Police have made over this time....

Approximately $25 million dollars was stolen in an "alleged" hack from the exchange.
The Managers of Cryptopia at the time alerted NZ police who immediately took control of the Cryptopia offices with the permission of those Managers, and then refused to allow Cryptopia staff in (aside from those Managers). This allowed the hackers to continue to drain hot wallets with nobody qualified on the inside to stop this.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/…/cryptopia-breach-highlights-gaps-…
Once allowed back into the offices, Cryptopia begun their own investigation and found a wealth of information to aid the NZ Police in finding the hackers. This included;

- proof the hack originated in Christchurch
- Employees who were logged by security cameras and door access to have been in the office shortly before the hack begun, who had no business being in the office at that time and have never been questioned about why. (nb - said employees quickly left the company and are openly anti-cryptopia)
- the employee whose computer was used to access the hack.
(nb - not necessarily saying this employee was responsible, just that it was their log in and user details used in the hack, they have some serious questions to answer about who had access to their laptop considering they were close friends with ex-staff who are openly anti-cryptopia)

After providing the NZ Police this information, Cryptopia expected some possible arrests or at the very least, extensive questioning to happen imminently. Then the Mosque shootings happened. The NZ Police announced they were putting the Cryptopia investigation on hold. Totally fair enough! That was some serious shit in our little city. Except once that investigation seemed somewhat over, the NZ Police admitted that they still hadn't even looked at the evidence they had been given.
Returning after the hack, one of the founders uncovered evidence of embezzlement from a shareholder who had been running the company with the very same managers mentioned above who "discovered" the "alleged" hack, since at least January 2018. He has been very open about this, going to the NZ Police, the Serious Fraud Office, Grant Thorton and then the Media. Still nobody seems to care.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/…/cryptopia-boss-blames-former-shar…
So when are the NZ Police going to look at their evidence? THIS IS THE BIGGEST HEIST IN NEW ZEALAND HISTORY. It would seem if you want to get rich illegally, all you have to do is commit a White-collar crime, because nobody seems to care if you do that! Please note, I say "alleged" because I am a believer that based on the evidence this was an inside job. As an ex-employee of Cryptopia, some would say I am bias to this story or that story, so please note, I am not posting to promote conspiracy theories etc, just that I totally advocate for the police, the SFO, the IRD, the Liquidators, and ANYONE who has the power, to look at the evidence. That is the only way the truth is going to come out, conspiracy or not.

this conversation might be a good look back in time hehe

What did I say from the beginning? HAIRCUT.   H A I R C U T. The "funny" thing is, my mgo tokens (affected) have not been cut, the BTC (theorically not affected) were cut.

A lot of wallets are still offline, don't rejoice too soon.

FFS Cryptopia are not running away they're facing the problem and solving it pretty damn well so far.

What's the practical difference between running away and not running away and announcing your coins are stolen, tough luck, we've taken what was yours.

As I had a 14% btc haircut, what does this mean? That 100% of ETH are gone? ( In the hypothesis those are not progress percentage but the amount of haircut. ) AND, in that case, how could the whole hack be 10% if the biggest coins are devastated ?

The percentage means the amount stolen or missing. All of your holdings in an affected coin have been reduced with that percent. For ETH, any ETH you had (100%) was removed from your account by Cryptopia.

It's a mystery how they had calculated that low amount, but obviously it's not right. Probably they converted all coins in NZD equivalent. Which is purely theorethical, as you can't practically sell that amount and not influence price. And not taking into account price movement in 2 months. ETH and LTC have increased in fiat 20% and 100%, respectively.

They didn't take what was yours, Users simply assumed only ETH/ERC20 was affected. So far (as other coins are still 'Offline' and haven't been checked yet) BTC and LTC were also affected along with ETH, with possibly other coins as they progress through the wallets.

Even folks accusing me of not losing anything, happy to post a screenshot of exactly what I lost just to shut you up.

Nice to see the Bitcointalk FUD engine back up and running away with crazy theories. Stay classy, folks. What a mess this forum has become.

so the detective/police thingy was just a show..if lost coins are just being discovered and about to be discovered.

NZ police can't do shit, it was/is a home court advantage for these crooks, they know it, the path to these investigations are already laid in front of them and it is a dead end   ...I wouldn't be surprised if the hacker was not caught or the funds not retrieved hehe

cryptsy big vern have to exit scam because he need it all..how much is BTC back then? 300$ more or less hehe...today you just have to buy low or sell high self-hack scam  

The serial FUDers coming out in force again, this is why no one takes this forum seriously.

yup specially after the so called "police lock down" was ended and cryptopia team are now able to access the facilities, doing their "securing of wallets" and coins missing are piling up hehe

[DADIBLAND]

15 JUNARY 2019
15 JUNARY 2020

One year has passed since members of the Cryptopia site were defrauded
Do not call it a hacker as they claim
I call it a scam
We demand the imprisonment of the site owner

[electronicash]

15 JUNARY 2019
15 JUNARY 2020

One year has passed since members of the Cryptopia site were defrauded
Do not call it a hacker as they claim
I call it a scam
We demand the imprisonment of the site owner

true scam. i only have shitcoins there i consider it loss already, if there is a chance i'd be interested to convert it to BTC it will still amount to 0.02BTC.

a year since, nothing happens. i guess we can all just forget the coins. if there is anything to be learned its still the one advise we kept reading in this forum. its to never again store coins on exchanges but hey we trade all day!!

[Indymoney]

15 JUNARY 2019
15 JUNARY 2020

One year has passed since members of the Cryptopia site were defrauded
Do not call it a hacker as they claim
I call it a scam
We demand the imprisonment of the site owner

I also waiting for this its really long time but no one listening or hearing all like dead so feeling my coins also now in RIP instead or ROI

[TheCryproMaster]

15 JUNARY 2019
15 JUNARY 2020

One year has passed since members of the Cryptopia site were defrauded
Do not call it a hacker as they claim
I call it a scam
We demand the imprisonment of the site owner

15 JUNARY 2021

Grant Thornton announces all funds depleted and reopens Cryptopia. Cryptopia rehacked. Rinse. Repeat.

[pinoycash]

15 JUNARY 2019
15 JUNARY 2020

One year has passed since members of the Cryptopia site were defrauded
Do not call it a hacker as they claim
I call it a scam
We demand the imprisonment of the site owner

Happy anniversary to all my co-cryptopia victim 

Where are the owners anyway? they are probably enjoying the millions they made from their customers.

[four3200]

what is this?:
https://www.cryptodigest.com/exchanges/huge-transfer-of-erc-20-from-cryptopia-raise-red-flags/

1 year still "investigating".

1st shit just got real post 100+ pages back.

SCAM EXCHANGE

I see not a lot has changed with this exchange 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8

Just before the "Hack"

[hiddensphinx]

How much did people here loose?

me 0.1 BTC worth of shitcoins 

[JollyGood]

Were total accumulative losses ever ball-pointed?

How much did people here loose?

me 0.1 BTC worth of shitcoins 

[Bigger By The Day]

me 0.07 BTC worth
 

[JollyGood]

me 0.07 BTC worth

Sorry to read about the way their scam has hit your finances. Imagine just how much the total investor loss would be. Does anybody have any ball-point figures?

[digit]

me 0.07 BTC worth

Sorry to read about the way their scam has hit your finances. Imagine just how much the total investor loss would be. Does anybody have any ball-point figures?

Funds taken in hack were said by Cryptopia to be 9% of total assets they held (https://news.bitcoin.com/cryptopia-lost-almost-a-tenth-of-its-assets-in-january-hack/). they had not completed their audit and haircuts and had only done BTC, LTC and ETH by the time they decided to liquidate the company. As they also had many tokens including USDT and TUSD, the amount will likely be higher. But from what is already known BTC, LTC and ETH taken was worth about $25-30 million USD at the time, so then it can be estimated to be $200 to $300 million customers are at risk of losing now to the company based on the outcome of the upcoming high court case in New Zealand (https://twitter.com/cryptopia_nz/status/1217993284498251776).

Don't forget that the Cryptopia also reopened for short time before liquidation pretending they were serious about keeping the exchange alive but now it looks like they did this so they could apply a haircut to customer accounts which had the effect that it reduced significantly what customers had in their balance by the percentage they claimed was stolen by locking in what was owed to customers at an extremely low exchange value for those assets at that time (Bitcoin price was very near its lowest). They also are said to have used this an opportunity to apply a haircut greater than than what was taken in hack, and give themselves extra BTC to liquidate before and during the liquidation. Unlike every other exchange that gets hacked, Cryptopia never provided any details or provided the community with a balance of what remained post hack. The most they said was that it was 9% of total assets on their twitter account. They have never proved that the haircut matched what was taken, and have provided no TxIDs or audit results for the crypto community to verify.

I have heard that the amount of BTC taken in haircut was nearly twice what was taken in the hack, and then once the liquidation began only some weeks later is then considered to be company bitcoin by the liquidators who have ignored its origins. Remember that the haircuts that were BTC 14%, LTC 43%, and ETH 100%. Therefore if hack is only 7% of the BTC held, it is in the range of 500 BTC they paid themselves before liquidation (Before liquidation andpost hack Bitcoin seen moving to new wallets before reopening was over 7000BTC, after liquidation began Bitcoin linked to the Cryptopia main wallet that was seen moving to the liquidator wallets is over 5000 BTC (https://whale-alert.io/transaction/bitcoin/1a9c856019eb33154adc14b5d34637ef70ef16a5eaff2b33f2baaa25e0a3c53c), but might be much higher if they have other multiple bitcoin wallets or stored on other exchanges).

The liquidators have not said if the IOU token/loss marker "CLM" given in exchange for haircut will be recognized, but even if it is (unlikely), the Cryptopia customers still lose because after deduct the extra BTC Cryptopia took in haircut to pay themselves and the company, the CLM token is 1:1 $NZD based (and was converted at BTC price on the day of the hack when it was really low and at the bottom and is below half what the BTC price today or the year before)  The "company Bitcoin" probably been sold as well the other company property last year by the liquidators (https://beincrypto.com/cryptopia-starts-liquidating-assets-creditor-repayment-date-still-unknown/).  They need official declaration that customer cryptocurrency belongs to the company now so they can extract more money for other companies, directors, shareholders and staff that are owed. This is what the NZ High Court will rule on.

I also heard a rumor that they delayed going into liquidation so they could use an Australian crypto exchange to cash out some of this BTC haircut in the months before and then left the rest for their future liquidators to "find". But without some evidence or the liquidators investigating these rumors, this money is probably gone and the the "cherry on the top" for the directors and shareholders that will receive another big payout if the rest of the customer assets are allowed to be liquidated by Grant Thornton.

Also heard another rumor that there exist companies set up in the UK that were on paper were providing customer and technical support for Cryptopia but in reality did very little work are owned by the Cryptopia directors and shareholders but are as a separate legal entities are in the liquidators list of creditors to be paid huge sums of money that "owed" to them alongside the other companies, staff etc in that list, so these people will get to double and triple dip on the payout from liquidation!

Hopefully the NZ Court will understand that the $300 million in cryptocurrencies belong entirely to the Cryptopia customers. and that the company, its directors, shareholders and creditors are not entitled to any of it.

sorry for the mess of text, there were some chatrooms i was in that had mentioned some of this but I see that no one had posted much info in here from what had been shared. perhaps some sleuths in here can find something or someone else who knows can tell us something. It will be a sad day to see the crooks benefit further from the misery they have caused to so many people, if the court decides to awards them or other parties (hoster, staff, shell companies) they owe to what belongs to the customers.

[JollyGood]

@digit

No problem about the text, it was no mess and made absolute good reading.

I did not know about the case in New Zealand but I do know Grant Thornton seem to be after as much as they can get for themselves. The negative press they have been receiving is warranted because it seems they have the means to help investors recoup part of their funds back but they are holding the power at the moment.

If approximately 9% of the funds were stolen in the alleged hack then it would mean a manner in which the whole thing could have been settled especially when some customers will not send KYC to Grant Thornton therefore will forfeit their funds which in-turn should be added to the payout kitty for those that did send KYC - just because Grant Thornton made it clear any payout would be based on a no-KYC no-payment basis.

So if the amount in question is around $300 million then surely Cryptopia owners/operators should be facing some sort of legal investigation for either their failure to prevent the hack through incompetence or for their complicity in it. At the moment I see nothing that was 100% eliminate the Cryptopia Team from suspicion.

[guigui371]

Also heard another rumor that there exist companies set up in the UK that were on paper were providing customer and technical support for Cryptopia but in reality did very little work are owned by the Cryptopia directors and shareholders but are as a separate legal entities are in the liquidators list of creditors to be paid huge sums of money that "owed" to them alongside the other companies, staff etc in that list, so these people will get to double and triple dip on the payout from liquidation!

I remember December 2017 - January 2018 - February 2018  Talking with Cryptopia Director and shareholder, INSIDE their office of the possibilities of them opening a technical center + customer center in London so they have with NZ a all day round customer support.
NZ is +12h with London.

What you say sounds very plausible as I heard plans from the own mouth of the directors.
Also, I read cover to cover the liquidator reports.
They are being charged $305 to $600/h for technical support, I wonder if it is this different company in England....

Ethically this wouldn't be very fair that they are charging to fix their own fuck up  with the money confiscated from unaffected users. 

At the time of the hack I had about 0.5btc worth of altcoins.

[TheCryproMaster]

Thanks Digit good write up.

Cant see how directors or shareholders will get anything out of this they'll be way down the list of payments. Customers have to be paid first if their balances are held in trust right?