R.I.P. Cryptopia!

Named as some Utopia in Crypto land, this Shitopia called Cryptopia has been served the final jolt in its coffins.

The day before, Newzealand based Cryptopia Exchange suspended its Exchange and appointed liquidators to "investigate and secure the assets".

Although it's quite late now, Exchange has finally appointed Grant Thornton as liquidators according to its press release.

Since its January, 2019 hack, the Exchange could never recover back. Although it was operating its business and striving to make profits through its activities, it's obvious that the funds of its customers were mostly virtual and would have failed the "proof-of-key" test if all customers had to withdraw simultaneously.

While answering users' queries today, the Exchange strangely stated that its customers can't even take screenshots of their crypto-balance until the completion of the investigation. What the heck!

It also explicitly emphasized that this investigation may take several months before its customers can withdraw any funds:

“Given the complexities involved we expect the investigation to take months rather than weeks.”

You can refer to the complete FAQ in this regard here.

It's almost impossible for an Exchange to survive a major hack and theft of funds.

You may recall the recent hack of 7000 BTC from Binance which didn't make a dent on its financials as it had set a special fund to meet such exigencies. But the point to be noted is that this hack though seems huge due to the amount involved, it was less than 10% of the annual earnings of Binance.

Of course, the controversial disappearance of about $850 M from Bitfinex which adversely impacted the credibility of its stable coin USDT , was a huge huge amount by any measure. But probably the promoters of Bitfinex have deep pockets and strong contacts and connections with the ultra-rich. I was surprised to learn that it successfully raised $1 billion through private token sale within 10 days period despite the said loss of $850 M. But this should be taken as some exception.

Most Exchanges like Cryptopia or Mt. Gox will never be able to recover. So I've already written an obituary for it here. I feel sorry for all its customers!

Do you feel Cryptopia can ever recover?

But such incidents underline the importance of Decentralized Exchange models. We hope they will address the problem of speed, liquidity, order book or volume soon. I heard that EOS based dGoods is coming up with an innovative model in this area.