BitForex Alleged $2.5 Billion Volume Flatlines as Exchange Abruptly Goes Offline

A top Hong Kong-based crypto exchange Bitforex has halted withdrawals on its platform after over $56 million was taken out of its wallets last week.

According to on-chain investigator ZachXBT, BitForex engaged in some “suspicious activity” last week. “Seeing some suspicious activity with the crypto exchange BitForex. On Feb 23 their hot wallets saw outflows of ~$56.5M. Shortly after this time withdrawals stopped processing with no official announcements having been made since.” According to ZachXBT, BitForex users are not having their inquiries answered by officials on BitForex’s X and Telegram.

Furthermore, BitForex’s CEO stepped down last month. According to ZachXBT, BitForex holds a significant supply of two altcoins – Tellor Tributes (TRB) and ECOMI (OMI). “Bitforex holds 18% of the TRB supply and 7% of the OMI supply.“ Tellor Tributes is a decentralized oracle and a system that miners on the Ethereum (ETH) network can use to fetch external data and place it on-chain for access by smart contracts.

The TRB token is used as a means of payment and in the governance of the protocol. OMI is the native utility token on the VeVe digital collectible platform. OMI tokens are the native medium of exchange on the ECOMI digital collectible platform. BitForex has yet to release a statement about the claims at time of writing.