Indian crypto exchange Coinsecure to offer Rs 2 Cr for lost Rs 19 Cr worth of Bitcoins
Earlier this week Delhi based virtual trading platform Coinsecure informed users that its Bitcoin funds have been exposed and taken outside of the control of the platform. The amount siphoned out was considered to be around 438 Bitcoins valued at almost Rs 19 crore, according to complaint filed by the company.
Just yesterday, the company said in another statement that they will be updating customers over the next week on how withdrawals can be requested and processed. The company said it would issue a bounty 10 percent (almost 2 crores) to the community for helping towards the recovery of its lost Bitcoins.
On April 10, the cryptocurrency exchange filed an FIR with the cyber cell in Delhi.
Further in its notice to customers it said,
“Our system itself have never been compromised or hacked; and the current issue points towards losses caused during an exercise to extract BTG to distribute to its customers. Our CSO, Dr Amitabh Saxena was extracting BTG and he claims that the funds have been lost in the process during the extraction of the private keys.”
In a complaint to the cyber cell, Coinsecure said that on April 9, the company was informed by its executive, Dr Amitabh Saxena that 438.318 Bitcoins were stolen from their company’s bitcoin wallet due to some attack.
Blaming the executive, Coinsecure said,
“As the private keys are kept with Dr Amitabh Saxena, we feel that he is making a false story to divert attention and he might have a role to play in this entire incident.”
Mohit Kalra, Founder and CEO at Coinsecure requested the authorities to seize Saxena’s passport.
“The incident reported by Dr Amitabh Saxena does not seem convincing to us. Dr Amitabh Saxena also has an Indian passport and he might fly out of the country, therefore, his passport should be seized so he can not fly out of the country.”
The company is reported to have close to 200,000 users trading on its platform daily.
In a statement it said,
“We are working round the clock to restore services and to try and recover all of the lost funds, and we shall keep all our users posted on the outcome of the details to ensure utmost transparency.”
Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), following the bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement, said it would, with immediate effect, ban all regulated entities from dealing with or providing services to any individual or business dealing with or settling virtual currencies.
