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HTX, Poloniex Assets Are '100% Safe' Says Justin Sun After $200M Hack
Both exchanges lost a combined total of more than $200 million in a series of hacks last month.
Updated Mar 9, 2024, 2:16 a.m. Published Dec 13, 2023, 11:41 a.m.
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Crypto mogul Justin Sun has said that assets held on HTX and Poloniex are “100% safe” after last month’s hack that saw more than $200 million siphoned out of both exchanges.
Both exchanges have opened withdrawals for certain assets, although several altcoins remain locked. Bitcoin [BTC] and Tron [TRX] are the two digital assets that could be withdrawn; this led to both tokens trading at a premium on Poloniex over the past few weeks, which meant users would have to take a haircut of up to 10% to liquidate their asset and withdraw another.
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The withdrawal freeze came after hackers stole $114 million out of Poloniex’s hot wallets on Nov. 10; this was followed up by $97 million being stolen from HTX and blockchain protocol Heco Chain.
“Right now, Poloniex and HTX have recovered from the hack, and we are resuming the tokens one by one,” Justin Sun, an investor in Poloniex and an advisor for HTX, told CoinDesk. “I think for HTX, we have already resumed 95% in terms of USD worth of assets. On Poloniex, we have resumed around 85% in terms of the USD value of the assets.”
“And also be aware, since we have already covered all of the loss of tokens in the platform, on HTX and Poloniex, 100% of assets are 100% safe,” Sun added. “Even though in terms of exchanges itself, we need to basically earn those profits in the future. But for customer assets, it’s 100% safe.”
An HTX spokesperson told CoinDesk, “The recent outflow represents a small fraction of our total reserves, and HTX remains in stable, healthy operation.”
To remedy the fears of users holding funds on both exchanges, HTX and Poloniex have announced an airdrop valued at $1 worth of tether [USDT]. A snapshot will be taken, and users will receive one airdropped token for every U.S. dollar worth of tokens they hold on the exchange.
HTX has facilitated $1.6 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours; Poloniex, meanwhile, has racked up $843 million, according to CoinMarketCap.
Justin Sun became a significant player in the crypto industry when he founded the Tron blockchain, which raised $70 million in a 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Tron is now the 11th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $9.1 billion; it is also the second largest blockchain in volume, with $7.9 billion in total value locked (TVL).
Sun’s rise to success with Tron came alongside regulatory scrutiny; the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Sun, alleging that TRX was a security earlier this year. Sun’s legal team was granted an extension to respond to that lawsuit earlier this week, according to court documents obtained by CoinDesk.
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