A Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange has announced that it will be performing maintenance on its systems. The ad, posted on Nov. 13, points out that “Balance details of some users are recorded abnormally”shift the blame to a third party.
Scheduled to last between 7 and 10 days, maintenance also stopped recordings. However, the brokerage has still not returned to its activities after more than 3 weeks.
Investors, concerned that this exchange will suffer the same fate as FTX, have already formed groups to investigate the situation themselves. One such investigation indicates that Victor Su (Weiyi Su), one of the largest investors in AAX, moved 5,000 ETH from the exchange to his own address in September.
In other words, the community believes that Su has orchestrated a pyramid scheme. In a response to the Financial Times, the CEO said that he had not fled and that he had also lost money with the deal.
Seven-day maintenance now takes more than three weeks
When entering the AAX website, a big warning pops up. Citing problems with user data rather than funds, the exchange claims it will take 7-10 days to reset its system.
Already in a post on its official blog, dated November 23, it is said that the malfunction comes from an external partner. However, there have been no updates since then.
“AAX has scheduled a system update that will help protect our users from the various malicious attacks we see in this vulnerable time”points to the statement. “Due to the error of our third-party partner, some users’ balance information has been recorded abnormally in our system.”
Investors are starting their own investigations
Looking for a quick search, a group on Telegram already has over 1,000 members. In addition to legal information, it is also possible to find a photo of Victor Su’s passport, if any, and even field investigations.
“A friend of mine went there this morning to have a look”commented a user on AAX physical addresses.
The case is reminiscent of the action taken by FTX investors, who traveled to the Bahamas in recent weeks to find Sam Bankman-Fried.
Ochain Analysis Points Out Executive Withdrew 5,000 ETH Before Maintenance Announcement
Another conducted an on-chain analysis and pointed out that Su allegedly received 5,000 ETH (R$33 million) from a broker address a few weeks before announcing it was having problems with customer data.
“This is just one of the moves I shared. We can see that there is a movement of almost 5,000 ETH from the AAX wallet on September 22nd before the exchange maintenance issue on November 13th November 22nd.says user named Mike Ong in the group of injured investors.
Finally, while AAX executives have been silent during this stressful time, sources say one of them has been beaten up by angry clients.
The more rational people report the case to various police departments. In any case, all this shows that investor outrage has reached its peak.
Before withdrawals were paused, AAX was listed on CoinMarketCap as one of the top 30 largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world by volume.
That is, although the size was not as big as the FTX, it must still cause a great loss to many people.
Source: Live Coins
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
