An Israeli platform dedicated to the development of the block chains that operate with ether, the second most demanded cryptocurrency this year, prepared its own initial coin offer (ICO) well in advance. But something in this project, called CoinDash, failed and everything ended in a multiple theft of money intended for investment.
The operation was scheduled for months for this July 17 and young entrepreneurs managed to raise about 6.4 million dollars in etheres of their first donors. The money came to the group's purse on the Ethereum platform, the official virtual currency, which appeared as a link on its official website.
For a few minutes there was a web link and suddenly it was altered, diverting all subsequent contributions to a different account and not controlled by the CoinDash team, according to Mashable. A subsequent statement attributed the swap to "an unknown perpetrator."
According to the calculations offered, the attack and its consequences lasted only 3 minutes, but that time was enough for more than 7 million dollars to be stolen. "It is a disgrace for us to announce that we have suffered a piracy attack during our sale of coins," the company explained.
However, some online commentators, many of whom were victims of scams, immediately hinted that they would look for the 'perpetrator' within the Israeli team itself.
"Is there any proof that it is a 'hack'?" Asked a Reddit user. "What if CoinDash puts an address and then denounces the hackers to get free with the etheres?" "It's probably been a trap from the beginning," speculated another.
The company did not escape all responsibility, but, on the contrary, promised to send 'coins' to each donor according to their contribution. "The collaborators that sent the ETHs to the fraudulent address of the Ethereum, which was maliciously placed on our website, and to the official address of CoinDash, will receive their CDT currencies in a pertinent manner," the statement said.
Partly as a result of that fraud, but also due to a general trend in the crypto-currency market, the exchange rate of ether is now below $ 200. It has reached this height weeks after reaching 425 dollars per ether.