According to a number of sources, the HitBTC cryptocurrency exchange froze the withdrawal of user funds. It is noteworthy that this happened on the eve of the Proof of Keys promotion scheduled for January 3, within which users are invited to withdraw bitcoins from trading platforms and thereby make sure that they, and not third parties, are the owners of their funds.
On December 31, one Reddit user accused the exchange of ignoring its withdrawal requests. At the same time, noted PEDXS, he had previously properly gone through the KYC procedure, having waited six months to access his account. Most of the funds he, however, has already managed to withdraw, leaving a small amount for daily trading.
“Six months ago, my account was blocked. A few months later, after I sent them more than 40 letters, HitBTC finally unfroze my account. I immediately brought out most of my funds, leaving little for daily trading, since HITBTC promised that "there will be no further automatic restrictions." In a few months, I increased my balance to several bitcoins. As the Proof of Keys stock approached, I thought that HITBTC were the main suspects in insolvency, so I tried to withdraw my bitcoins. And what do you think? They blocked the withdrawal and froze my account again, ”wrote PEDXS.
He added that the account was frozen more than 10 days ago, and all attempts to contact the exchange were answered with standard automatic letters. In the absence of communication with the exchange, PEDXS decided to publicly warn other users that the exchange probably did not have the necessary means.
On January 1, the representative of the exchange responded to the PEDXS record, asking him to submit a ticket number when contacting support.
Exactly the same answer was received by the user lookatmyiq, who also complained that, despite all the KYC procedures, his account was suddenly frozen.
“I have been trading crypts for many years on various exchanges and have never been confronted with my funds being blocked without any warning. The support was very quick when I asked for additional information, but after I provided everything to them, they just disappeared, ”wrote lookatmyiq.
The information that HitBTC is freezing user accounts was also confirmed by the author of the initiative Proof of Keys, Bitcoin investor and the leading Bitcoin Knowledge podcast Trace Meyer.
On Wednesday morning, January 2, he wrote on Twitter that he himself did not have an account on this exchange and therefore asked a friend to make a withdrawal request.
"Be careful! The result: the withdrawal of funds for your account is temporarily unavailable, ” Mayer shared with the information he received from his friend.
Has @hitbtc failed #ProofOfKeys ? I do not have an account. Asked a friend to initiate a withdrawal. BEWARE! ?
Result: “Withdrawals are temporarily disabled on your account.” Https://t.co/J3HMHKA1ah @maxkeiser @ToneVays @theonevortex @SatoshiLite @Excellion @CaitlinLong_ @nvk pic.twitter.com/wsXKiOlEJF
– Trace Mayer [Jan / 3➞₿?np] (@TraceMayer) January 2, 2019
Recall, Trace Meier announced the initiative of the Proof of Keys in December last year. The action is timed to the 10th anniversary of the creation of the genesis block and is designed to demonstrate the monetary sovereignty of Bitcoin users and should help confirm that they, and not third parties represented by the exchanges, own their funds.
Note that this is not the first time that users complain about the impossibility of withdrawing funds from HitBTC. BlockchainJournal wrote about this in December 2017 , after which the exchange explained the delays by the influx of new users.
In May 2018, the Karma Group filed a lawsuit against HitBTC, accusing the exchange of receiving 527.01 ETH for listing the Karma tokens (KRM), but did not fulfill its obligations.
In July of the same year his intention to sue HitBTC said the founder of MGT Capital Investments and founder of McAfee Security anti-virus John McAfee – he accused of inflated commissions in exchange for withdrawal cryptocurrency Docademic (MTC).
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