Launched only a few months ago, an Italy-based crypto exchange Altsbit has been hacked and can’t afford to cover the losses, and will now have to shut down as a result.

The Altsbit platform doesn’t offer any clear information about the exchange or company on their website or social media page, but made the announced exchange hacking on Twitter last Thursday of a breach in their systems, saying:

Dear users,
Unfortunately we have to notify you with the fact that our exchange was hacked during the night and almost all funds from BTC, ETH, ARRR and VRSC were stolen.
A small part of the funds are safe on cold wallets.

— Altsbit (@altsbit) February 6, 2020

Altsbit has posted an update on its website and says most of the hacked coins have been kept in cold storage, so partial refunds will be issued, even if the exchange doesn’t have the money to offer full compensation to its users. The hackers seem to have taken 6,929 Bitcoin (BTC) from a total held of 14,782, 23,219 Ether (ETH) from 32,262, 3,924,082 Pirate Chain (ARRR) from 9,619,726, 414,154 Verus Coin from 852,726 and 1,066 Komodo (KMD) from a total of 48,015.

The Altsbit website mentions that users need to apply for partial refunds. Now, the BTC and ETH stolen value about $63,000. This is what the exchange mentioned about refunds:

“Refunds will begin on February 10 2020 and end on May 8 2020, after this date it will no longer be possible to request a refund as the Altsbit platform will be terminated.”

In the meantime, the black-hat hackers from the group LulzSec claimed to have done the theft and said things won’t stop here. This is exactly what they’ve tweeted:

We assure that @altsbit didn't had proper security to stop Lulz Canon. Many others to follow. Better Stack up the Security – Note to other Exchanges #ForTheLulz

— The Lulz Boat (@LulzSec) February 8, 2020

Let’s not forget some LulzSec members have been arrested for the Sony Pictures hack from 2011.

In a response to Altsbit tweet from Thursday, the famous decentralized exchange (DEX) Block DX tweeted:

Dear centralized exchanges,

You’re done.

– Everyone https://t.co/QzAJDeU4mN https://t.co/5uMcONGA2S

— Block DX (@BlockDXExchange) February 6, 2020

Block DX’s tweet comes once again as a confirmation that decentralized is the way to go, as this provides more control over wallets.

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