Those who follows the news of cryptocurrencies must have heard that MapleChange, a Canadian-owned stock exchange, was hacked and looted in the late last year. From Microcoin’s point of view, this event was of particular importance, as it was the second crypto exchange (the first from the centralized ones) to list the MCC. The story ended luckily for us, and the coins stored there were returned to the community, but it was neither easy nor quick.
For a new, nonprofit project, first listing is always a major milestone, this is the time when the team introduces themselves to the world. In 2018, MCC became tradable on Bisq’s decentralized crypto exchange, but DEXes, especially the smaller ones, still struggle with their childhood illnesses and are described by lower trading volumes. This is reflected in the number of users (and obviously it is influenced by the long “cryptocurrency-winter” as well), so it didn’t really have much impact on the project. On the other hand, MapleChange is (was) a centralized crypto exchange, with its advantages and disadvantages, so even if slowly and in small quantities, MCC trading began and it became available worldwide.
However, at the end of October 2018, the news came out that MapleChange was being hacked. Obviously, this affected our community sensitively, not only because of the closing of the “gate to the world”, but also in terms of the coins being offered for sale on the crypto exchange. According to rumors, bitcoin and litecoin were stolen from MapleChange at a price of around $ 6 million. The MCC coins were still on MapleChange’s account, as it appeared in our explorer.
Of course, in the cryptocurrency world, things started to get hot right away, a group of revenge-seekers was formed on Twitter, and rumors began to circulate that this was an exit scam, not an outside attack. This could have been due to the poorly chosen communication by the market team, who simply closed or deleted their social media accounts after the news. But they returned within a few hours and there was a mention of a refund for the missing coins. Of course, this did not calmed the users, and the exact location of the crypto exchange team, or at least the owner, was discovered by this angry group. In addition, several coin projects have said that their promised refund has not yet been made, while others have confirmed that they have already got their assets from the exchange’s team.
The Microcoin community, of course, saw that the account we gave to MapleChange is available and it’s contained the coins submitted. A member of the community, CryptoSyphon, contacted Flavius, the head of the exchange, and initially, through an almost one-sided exchange of messages, he reached out to him through his brother. From now on, sending the coins back to the community wasn’t easy too, but within a few weeks the matter was resolved, the questioned account was returned to the MCC team, and the “lost” coins returned to their rightful owners.
We could say that everything is good when the ending is good, but not. Personally, I don’t envy the stress, either from the miners who had a lot of money on the exchange or from CryptoSyphon who is managed the coin giving back process. The cryptocurrency world is extremely risky, and such an event can further strengthen our conviction that there is almost nothing we can do for our goods. Without risk, of course, there is no profit, so the team will list the coin again on one of the exchanges, so the miners can (possibly) be paid for maintaining the network, but we know for sure that there is nothing sure in the crypto world. 🙂