Gatecoin, the Hong-Kong regulated cryptocurrency exchange which back in May 2016 experienced a hack and theft of ETH and BTC (roughly $2m worth) has today provided their latest update on its repayment schedule of the ETH portion of the debt (the BTC debt has since been fully recovered).

Back in February, the company provided a detailed update on specific plans of action to be taken to develop business on the exchange which would improve repayment time, they also said then they would work to repay the next portion of the ethereum debt (ETD) within the next two months.

Fast forward now to April, Gatecoin said today a deal fell through which would have provided a major source of revenue that would have enabled them to repay a significant portion of the ETD. Following the February update, they were unable to close the deal associated with that revenue stream and subsequently could not compensate for additional revenue sources or funding so they will need to delay repayment further.

Gatecoin declared that since its re-launch in mid-August 2016, volumes on the exchange have remained lower than expected and its been struggling to grow revenues from additional (non-exchange) streams. The team said they have prioritized the use of its current financial resources to maintain the sustainability of the firm so that the company can continue operating and eventually repay the ETD.

Some potentially good news and more details:

The exchange said that although they have yet to secure an additional equity investment, it is now in discussions with several high-profile investors based in Hong Kong. Consequently, closing this potential investment will take the exchange a few more months. Thus, negotiations will have an impact on the timeline and terms of the additional ETD repayment.

For revenue, Gatecoin is continuing to support several ethereum-based application projects by underwriting their token sales and or listing their tokens on the exchange. Most recently, Gatecoin has launched Matchpool’s GUP IOU trading and will be listing Iex.ec’s RLC tokens starting next week.

Moreover, the exchange stated it is now working with a major market maker to boost volumes across several token markets on Gatecoin, which would begin to have an impact over the next month.

Gatecoin’s engineering stated they located the movements of the stolen ETH. The funds have gone from an ethereum wallet addresses controlled by the hackers to a wallet address associated with Changelly, a Europe-based crypto asset exchange. However, those funds have subsequently been converted into bitcoin.

As a result of the engineers’ work, Gatecoin is working with Changelly to gather more information about the individuals moving the funds. Gatecoin management has also informed Europol of the situation.

In the meantime, the company said residents of Europe holding ETD are encouraged to get in touch with the exchange so that they can help make additional claims to the user’s local law enforcement agency, which is likely to escalate the case to Europol. Hong Kong police were reported to have come up empty in their investigations and have now shut the case.

Aurélien Menant, CEO of Gatecoin said:

“I understand that this update may not have met your expectations regarding the ETD repayment. I also acknowledge your potential frustrations with the delay of the ETD repayment schedule and realize that the longer we take to address this issue, the less likely you will be to trust or use our services in the future.” “However, I can reaffirm our commitment to repay the stolen funds and can assure you that this is the main priority of the entire Gatecoin team.” “Since the hack occurred, we have been working tirelessly to resolve this situation as soon as possible so that we can move on from this challenging chapter in our history and focus on our goal of building the global gateway to decentralized applications.”