After reporting an attack in December last year, Russian crypto exchange Livecoin has now announced the closure of its services. The exchange stated that it was taking the drastic step following a carefully executed hack in December 2020.

In an official statement, the exchange stated that it could not go on with its business as the hack had affected its technical and financial capacity. However, the exchange clarified that it would refund all its clients. A press release shared with Bitcoin Exchange Guide reads,

“Our service has been damaged hard in technical and financial ways. There is no way to continue operative business in these conditions, so we take a hard decision to close the business and pay the remaining funds to clients.”

Currently, the amount of funds left remains unclear. The exchange also did not reveal the dollar amount of funds that were lost in the alleged hack.

The alleged hack occurred at the end of last year, and at the time, Bitcoin was trading above $20,000. During Christmas eve, Livecoin announced that it had been attacked and was not in control of a number of its servers. The exchange warned its users to quit using its services forthwith.

It is believed that the hackers were able to steal about 106 BTC, 236 BCH, 380 ETH, 66.8 million DOGE, 567,012 XRP, and unreported amounts of ERC-20 and USDT.

It is also believed that a huge amount of Ethereum-based funds were changed to DAI on Uniswap, a decentralized exchange. Additionally, a huge amount of the remaining funds were transferred to cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin.

According to the press statement, customers have been given up to March 17 to make official claims for refunds. The firm is also asking its customers to be cautious of potential fraud in various messages and other channels with people representing themselves as team members of Livecoin. The press statement reads,

“Do not send money to anyone. You don't have to pay to get back your funds from us, the only thing you need is to send a request and follow simple procedure.”

The firm is also asking its clients to get all official communications from Livecoin.news only. However, some clients have stated that the email address given on the new media channel is inactive.

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