It's a headline the crypto evangelists would have liked to avoid at a time when the industry is pushing for widespread crypto adoption.
The Singapore-based exchange crypto.com was forced to suspend, for several hours, all withdrawals of funds following suspicious activity, which reportedly resulted in the theft of at least $15 million of ethereum.
The company, which has more than 10 million customers and is one of the most prominent crypto platforms in the U.S., posted on its account that withdrawal services have been restored and that all funds are safe. It didn't provide additional details.
Despite reports of missing funds, the platform has yet to confirm that it has indeed been attacked.
A day earlier, the company, which is the industry’s fourth-largest centralized crypto exchange, according to CoinGecko, suspended all withdrawals and deposits and claimed that the measure was temporary and was intended to close a security breach it suffered.
This news comes at a bad time for the crypto sphere, which is increasing its efforts to lead to a wide adoption of crypto. The volatility of cryptocurrency still puts off many investors and Main Street.
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Crypto.com, for example, bought the naming rights to the mythical Staples Center, the Los Angeles home venue of the National Basketball Association Lakers and Clippers. And it recruited Hollywood star Matt Damon, a Crypto.com investor, for a massive ad campaign aimed at luring Main Street.
Technical issues on crypto trading platforms have become commonplace as the hype surrounding digital assets grows.
Providers such as Coinbase (COIN) , Binance and Kraken in the past year have all suffered widespread outages at times of peak demand. That caused trouble for investors, who were prevented from making withdrawals or liquidating their positions during volatile trading periods.
The new mishap prompted many affected users to express their dismay on social media and to complain about funds missing from their accounts, including meme coin dogecoin Co-Founder Billy Marks. He posted that he noticed "odd activity" on Crypto.com.
But security consultancy Peck Shield said on Twitter that Crypto.com has lost at least 4,600 ETH (around $15 million in current prices).
The scale of the damage is "definitely worse," Peck Shield told website Decrypt.co.
