Over the last few days, Tim, petros and other members of the BTCP Core Team were engaging in a conversation with HitBTC- who reached out to us directly, desperately requesting help to move BTCP coins held in a HitBTC wallet that would not be safeguarded from the coin burn. We immediately responded to help the HitBTC Team address the issue. First and foremost, we clarified whether or not the issue pertained to any wallet belonging to a HitBTC USER It was NOT. Next, we had our core developer members provide HitBTC with multiple solutions to fix the issue, which were tested by our team and proven to resolve the issue which HitBTC was struggling with. Despite providing several solutions, HitBTC explained that the issue persisted, and demanded we “compensate” HitBTC for the 58,920 BTCP coins that were lost during the coin burn. The fact here is that hitbtc DID NOT support the fork for USERS, instead Hitbtc got their btcp segwit from btc segwit, from the BTC/ZCL fork, and have held on to it this entire time, and they are referring to those as user funds even though they are not as ALL user btcp had to be deposited AFTER the fork, and therefore NOT subject to the coin burn. After attempting to follow up with HitBTC to see if the issue was resolved, we received no response for over a day. After the coin burn took place as planned (with almost 6 weeks public notice), we received the following email from HitBTC, 21 Feburary:

“Dear team, Your support and help in resolving all the technical issues are highly appreciated but, unfortunately, it wasn’t as efficient and prompt as it has to be. Due to a coin burn, carried out by your team, our custody has lost control over the BTCP assets. We are kindly proposing you to compensate custody losses until February 23th 00:00 UTC, as this coin burn was both your decision and responsibility and you didn’t provide our team with the proper solutions.

“Bottom Line is this: BTCP did nothing wrong. BTCP provided HitBTC with immediate, effective solutions to resolve their alleged technical “problems.” HitBTC KNEW they were going to lose their BTCP Segwit coins in the coin burn but did not want to make it public knowledge because HitBTC mislead their Users last year by stating that HitBTC would NOT support the fork. Yet, HitBTC did in fact support the fork, but only for their own economic advantage. By their own admission, HitBTC owned a minimum of 58,920 BTCP Segwit coins. We have reason to believe HitBTC used its role as custodian of all its Users BTC to earn BTCP Segwit coins during the fork. Whether or HitBTC manipulated the price of BTCP over the last year by trading BTCP they promised that did not have, is not verified, yet. What can be verified is that the Coinburn took place, Hitbtc lost the BTCP Segwit coins, and now they are holding the entire BTCP community hostage until they are refunded the 58,920 BTCP. If not, they we will delist BTCP”