Cryptopia, the embattled New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange that suffered a $16 million hack back in January this year, is back in business with its website relaunching in read-only mode on Tuesday this week. This is a day later than anticipated in last week’s series of tweets that notified the public of relaunch on Monday 4th.
The website was taken down for maintenance on January 15th following the hack of the Cryptopia wallets supposedly on the 14th. Following this relaunch, all users’ funds as held on January 14th have been reinstated (albeit inaccessible) as the exchange prepares for rebates to its users.
In a tweet on the Tuesday 5th announcing the relaunch of the platform, Cryptopia wrote
“Update: The read-only site is now live. The holding balance from the 14th Jan is pre hack and we will be using these holdings as a baseline for calculating rebates moving forwards.”
The exchange has confirmed that the balances will be used to process rebates for the affected users. The balances on individual accounts should only be used for informational purposes. Relaunching the platform to pre-hack status means that users may not be able to identify who lost their funds and who didn’t and since the funds are not accessible for exchange or withdrawal, the public will never know for sure the accurate amount that the exchange lost in the hack.
The New Zealand police cleared the exchange to reopen back in February 14th but Cryptopia chose not to reopen citing that they need to calculate the loses the exchange incurred and ensure that the hackers are no longer in control of user wallets before relaunching.
According to the Twitter updates, the exchange lost (in the worst case scenario) about 9.4%. The exchange did not provide a fiat or cryptocurrency equivalent to put that percentage in perspective.
An independent blockchain analytics firm named Elementus made the claim that it had analyzed the Ethereum blockchain and estimated the ETH and ERC-20 tokens stolen amounted to at least $16 million a claim that Cryptopia is yet to dispute or concur with.
Going forward, Cryptopia expects to process the user rebates for the affected users and should provide details as time goes by.
