Crypto Exchange Suddenly Suspend Withdrawals Funds for 3–4 Weeks

On January 7, the Singapore cryptocurrency exchange COSS, without any prior notice, informed users that trading on the platform, depositing and withdrawing funds was suspended for 3–4 weeks. The reason indicated is the need to disable the exchange website, while funds from the “warm wallet” will be transferred to a new one.

“There is no need to panic,” the company writes.

About 200,000 people on the platform with assets of $2 million, think differently. The latest exchange notice formed the basis of various theories.

“[The exchange] has been a mess. Now we are cleaning it up and hence this decision of shutting it down for four weeks and getting clean code that’s scalable, which works, and which suits the industry today,” a COSS spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous, told Decrypt.

He also said that the management of the exchange intentionally did not notify users of the work being prepared in advance in order to avoid a massive outflow of funds, although they had been preparing for the update for several months. He himself received this information three hours before its publication on the blog.

COSS was launched in 2017, is officially based in Singapore and is registered in Amsterdam. Some note the exchange’s close ties with Romania. Most of its employees are based in India. It offers access to 50 coins, including its own token, as well as a cryptocurrency storage service and an IEO platform.

The spokesperson tried to dispel the fears of the community, in which they were already talking about the exit scam:

“Spoiler alert: They will rob the exchange and never open a new one,” said one Reddit user.

An exchange official said that the reason for the urgent transition to the implementation of the plan could be a new investor who agreed to finance the company last week, so COSS can finally update its outdated platform.

In 2019, COSS noticeably lost ground in the market, and its trading volume dropped from $13 million a day to $1 million. COSS raised $3.2 million during the hype in 2017 but faced several problems at the time of its launch in April the same year when one development team left the exchange, and the results of the other turned out to be unsatisfactory, the employee recalls: “Then it was impossible to enter the exchange for hours. If it went into maintenance mode, this could go on for several days. Deposit/withdrawal of funds did not work, transactions were cut off halfway. ”

He also noted that COSS enjoys a low level of trust in the community, so users, as a rule, do not use it to store large amounts.

Author: Marko Vidrih

Featured image credit: Pixabay