Crypto.com has admitted to making another serious and troubling technical error: It mistakenly sent 320,000 worth of Ethereum (about $416 million) to another cryptocurrency exchange called Gate.io about three weeks ago. In a Twitter post, Crypto.com CEO Chris Marsalek said the company was supposed to send the currency to one of its cold or offline wallets, but accidentally sent it to an “authorized” address belonging to its company account. in Gate.io reports The limit.
This all took place after Marsalek publicly released the firm’s cold wallet addresses to provide transparency into what the exchange was doing with its funds. After analyzing Crypto.com’s transactions, one Twitter user points out that the exchange sent 320,000 Ethereum to Gate.io on Oct. 21, an amount that represents about 80% of the company’s Ethereum portfolio.
Marsalek later added that he was able to recover “the entire” transferred estate. Twitter users confirmed that Crypto.com got their funds back about a week later by moving 285,000 Ethereum (about $350 million) into one wallet and placing the remaining 35,000 Ethereum (about $43 million) into another . Gate.io also posted a response, noting that it began refunding funds after realizing the transfer was an “operational error.” But at least this time, Crypto.com’s funds have indeed been returned. In August, a rather unfortunate mistake resulted in Crypto.com transferring $7.2 million to a customer instead of $68, and it is currently suing to get its money back.
All funds have been returned. We currently have a balance in the single-digit millions of dollars on Gate.
—Chris | Crypto.com (@kris) November 13, 2022
Despite Marshallek’s assurances that “all our systems are functioning normally”, this whole ordeal has caused money to be withdrawn from the platform as users begin to worry whether Crypto.com will suffer the same fate as the already bankrupt FTX exchange. Some users speculated whether the transfer was made to alter proof of reserves that numerous cryptocurrency exchanges had promised to provide in response to the FTX crash.
While Gate.io released its asset verification snapshot on Oct. 19 and clarified that “Crypto.com deposit is not included,” Crypto.com provided partial proof of reserves on Nov. 11. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao appeared to hint at the situation in a tweet Sunday morning, saying, “If an exchange has to move large amounts of cryptocurrencies before or after showing its wallet addresses, that is a clear sign of trouble. stay away”.
Like this @cryptocom publishes portfolios showcasing the “best assets” on the platform
+20% of wallet is SHIBA INU?!
Does @cryptocom have direct exposure to SHIB?
Crypto. com doesn’t seem to do any material volume in SHIB pairs (~2%) so why would customers own that much? pic.twitter.com/glxL6IRV2f
— zk-???? (@ZK_shark) November 13, 2022
Also, a major concern is that 20% of Crypto.com’s assets are in the not very popular Shiba Inu cryptocurrency, which is considered a joke rather than a serious cryptocurrency.
Crypto.com is also a large employer in Bulgaria, with nearly 3,000 employees by June 2022, but they were drastically reduced to 1,500 in August.