This year has had too much of scandals including crypto exchanges and their shady owners. It seems that they are not finished at this point as reports are rising of another exchange boss doing a sprinter with the keys to the crypto wallets on a moderately obscure Asian exchange.
Crypto Exchange IDAX CEO 'Missing'
As per an organization declaration before the end of last week the CEO of Asian crypto exchange IDAX has disappeared. That would not be so awful on the off chance that he hadn't taken the entirety of the private keys to crypto cold wallets with him. The exchange included that deposits and withdrawals had been solidified prompting speculation over the burglary of conceivably millions of dollars.
"Hence, access to Cold wallet which is stored almost all cryptocurrency balances on IDAX has been restricted so as a result, deposit/withdrawal service can't be given."
Chief Lei Guorong may have responded to the ongoing Chinese crackdown on exchanges which has resulted in various smaller ones closing up shop. IDAX appears to have worked out of Shanghai yet had administrative centers in Singapore as per reports.
Estimations of how much precisely was stored on the exchange shift however some sources guarantee it could be in the hundreds of millions. As indicated by Livecoinwatch IDAX every day volume is over $700 million, Coinmarketcap reports a similar figure.
News of this potential leave scam comes just days after $50 million in Ethereum was purportedly stolen from South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit in a possible inside occupation.
Prior this year the CEO of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX supposedly passed away taking the organization's private keys and $130 million worth of computerized assets with him.
So far this year at any rate seven exchanges have been hacked including Cryptopia, DragonEx, Bithumb, Binance, Bitrue, Bitpoint, and most as of late Upbit.
These grievous incidents further tarnish the industry and should prompt a massive reexamine of how investors manage exchanges.
Falling Trust In Exchanges?
As opposed to the whole ethos of Bitcoin and its brethren, crypto exchanges are simply computerized banks, supplanting the customary ones that everybody at first needed to distance themselves from.
They make millions in profits from exchanging commissions, spreads and fees and are actually indistinguishable to and bank benefitting off their customer's cash.
Smaller exchanges such as IDAX are obviously high risk entities with all assets in the hands of usually a single substance who owns the stage. Bigger ones such as Binance move some of their prospering profits once again into insurance funds to cover any losses.
Upbit won't be the last exchange to get hacked and IDAX won't be the last leave scam. The lesson here is clear; the best way to have full control and access to your advanced assets is to store them all alone cool wallet. As the saying goes 'not your keys, not your crypto'.