Cryptopia hack: liquidators to begin repatriation of assets to 900k account holders

Hacked crypto exchange Cryptopia’s assigned liquidator, Grant Thornton New Zealand shared an update that Cryptopia account holders will soon be able to register to claim their trapped crypto funds, which in total is worth nearly $100 million. The claims registration process is said to open by the end of the year, however, the release did not mention the exact date. 

The liquidator stressed on the verification process of the claimants, in the release, with Grant Thornton planning to reach out to 960,000 account holders of the hacked exchange who are said to be active. Moreover, liquidators ensured that the steps involved in the verification process would comply with New Zealand law to the criminals behind the exchange’s hack remains unknown. With regard to the restarting of Cryptopia, the release stated: 

With the source of the hack still not identified we cannot open up an exchange that has been compromised. We have to complete the reconciliation process: this includes re-establishing coins in a non-hacked environment and then reconciling coin balances to the customer database. With over 900,000 active customers and up to 900 different coins, this is not a quick process.

Cryptopia lost $17.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies because of the hack in early 2019 which forced the exchange into liquidating its assets. It held an estimated $100 million worth of digital assets at the time of its liquidation. A court ruling in May this year deemed the funds as a form of property that belonged to users enabling the users to receive their cryptocurrencies back.