Bitcurex, one of Poland’s largest exchanges has shut shop after a reported 2300 BTC ($ 1.5 mln) theft. The polish exchange was one of the oldest in the country.

Before the website of Bitcurex was taken down, a message was posted by the administrators in Polish which translated reads:

“On 13.10.2016 as a result of third-party systems service www.bitcurex.com/ www.bitcurex.com damaged by external interference in automated data collection and processing of information. The consequence of these actions is the loss of part of the assets managed by bitcurex.com/dashcurex.com.”

People were promised their money back

Bitcurex had promised to return money back to the users within seven days according to the Polish newspaper Gazeta. It is further alleged by Bitcoin.pl that the exchange had no records left after it was attacked and it was asking users to submit forms to confirm ownership of assets.

“Given that the exchange required proved ownership of the site and that the confirmed balance disagreed with the facts,” Bitcoin.pl wrote in an article, “you can come to the conclusion that the exchange does not have a current copy of the database, which could be damaged at the time of the alleged hacking.”

Thieves? Scammers?

Not only has the exchange shut down and people have most likely lost all their money, it also came to light that customer data of the exchange was also compromised in the hack that took place in October 2016. The lack of customer data with the exchange is a strong indicator of that.

While the last tweet on the company’s twitter handle was made on Sep. 12, 2016, the Facebook page of Bitcurex is still active and is riddled with comments and posts from angry customers.

One user Daniel Jarek simply posted “Thieves”, while another Daniel Stachurski wrote, “Scammers.”

Bitcurex has a lesson for all

We have repeated again and again that you should never keep your cryptocurrency in any hot wallet for any time longer than absolutely necessary.

Poland itself has a lesson to learn in this since it has long been ambiguous about the status of Bitcoin in the country and has refused to take a proper stance on it.

However, hopefully, things are changing in Poland as we recently covered and the authorities will be more prepared to lay the groundwork for the operation of exchanges in the future.

As for Bitcurex, their motto was “When you invest in what you believe, you are ahead of the rest.” We urge everyone to be more focused on facts rather than beliefs and do their due diligence.