Italian Crypto Exchange Hacked; Owner Fending Off Manipulation Claims
An Italian crypto exchange has been hacked and as details about the thievery emerged over the weekend, this is increasingly appearing to not be your ordinary hack; there could be something squirrelly going on with the entire setup, observers are charging.
Let’s get right to the nitty gritty of this hack, which is the second largest to take place this year. In January, Tokyo-based Coincheck was hacked to the tune of $530 million.
Called BitGrail, the exchange was one of a few places for a recently rebranded token now called Nano to be traded.
BitGrail, at the end of last week, posted a statement on its website alerting Nano’s buyers that thieves had made off with $170 million of tokens.
"Bitgrail Srl communicates to its users that from internal verification checks of the adequacy of the withdrawal operations, unauthorized transactions have emerged that have led to a shortfall of n. 17 Mln of Nano ca forming part of the portfolios managed by Bitgrail Srl. For the fraudulent activity referred to above, today's regular complaint complaint was filed with the competent police authorities and police investigations are underway."
Since this notice, BitGrail has shuttered operations.
"In order to conduct further verifications, all the activities will be temporarily suspended (including withdrawals and deposits). This procedure is indispensable for users security.— Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy)February 9, 2018"
“Francesco the Bomber”
Thought to be the mastermind behind BitGrail’s creation, a person with the handle “Francesco the Bomber” was tweeting away on Friday about the hack. This person alerted token holders about the authorities being contacted, operations being suspended, and the unlikelihood that they would get all their money back. And, oh yeah, the person offered an apology.
"NANO on BitGrail have been stolen.Unfortunately there is no way to give it back to you at 100% (we only got 4 MLN XRN right now).The devs, as you have guessed, dont want to collaborate— Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy)February 9, 2018"
Hint of something being wrong
BitGrail’s observers are curious about some potentially damning issues that may be at play. One relates to BitGrail’s owner trying to manipulate the exchange’s developers. Some are accusing him of asking that the coin’s ledger be altered. The anxieties are based on a thread of communications that happened beginning, Thursday, Feb. 8.
In response to the allegation, Francesco the Bomber began tweeting Friday, Feb. 9.
"In the wake of the unfounded accusations made against me by the dev team and of the dissemination of private conversations that compromise police investigations, Bitgrail s.r.l. is forced to contact the police in order to protect its rights and users— Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy)February 10, 2018"
In blaming the developers in one of the flurry of tweets, Francesco the Bomber wrote:
"NANO on BitGrail have been stolen.Unfortunately there is no way to give it back to you at 100% (we only got 4 MLN XRN right now).The devs, as you have guessed, dont want to collaborate"
The entire matter has left Nano buyers frustrated. One tweet read:
"The Nano Core Team's Statement on BitGrail's Insolvency:https://t.co/yZuddrb3wb— Nano (@nanocurrency)February 9, 2018"
Red flags?
There are some interesting tidbits about this Nano coin. Rolled out in 2015 under the name RaiBlocks, the development team, at the end of January, announced it was rebranding the token to Nano. We reported to you this month that rebranding is what many coins and tokens have done to appeal to a wider audience with better positioning. In Nano’s case, there was some community criticism for choosing a too-obvious and overused term.
No matter, the token enjoyed a bit of a bounce on the news of the rebranding. It had been trading at $.20 on Dec. 1, 2017. It surged to a high of $37.62 on Jan. 2, before dipping below $7 on Feb. 6, according to CoinMarketCap. At the time of writing, it was $8.81.
Here’s a chart about Nano from CoinMarketCap.
Also interesting is how the thinly traded crypto can be pricing at these amounts given that it’s not listed on any major exchanges, like Coinbase, for example. The exchanges it is listed on include BitGrail, Mercatox and Bitflip. It’s BitGrail that was supposedly built exclusively for the Nano coin.
We’ll keep you posted about the latest developments with BitGrail and Nano, as there surely will be more discussion in the upcoming week.