Hotbit Allegedly Involved In Rugpull Activities According To RichQuack Claims

Hotbit crypto exchange. (Photo; Doc. Coindoo)

JAKARTA - After the announcement from the DeFi RichQuack project on Twitter, there was a suspicion that the cryptocurrency trading platform Hotbit may have made a rugpull against its customers. RichQuack claims that they have become victims of a rugpull carried out by Hotbit. The trading platform allegedly sold 256 Trillion QUAK tokens owned by the QUACK holder on the PancakeSwap platform.

The total value of the token reached around 153,800 US dollars (Rp 2.3 billion) at the time of writing this article. RichQuack also claims that their balance is around US$100,000 (Rp1.5 billion) in crypto, particularly USDT and QUACK, is missing on the Hotbit platform.

Their efforts to withdraw assets have not yet been approved, and until now, RichQuack said that they did not receive a response from Hotbit. In addition, other projects such as BabyDogeCoin (BABYDOGE) and DogelonMars (ELON) were also affected by the alleged rugby.

Some on-chain data suggest that Hotbit was involved in dumping activity in several projects. BSC Scan reports that Hotbit has sold 4,000 BNB BABYDOGE on PancakeSwap and US$500,000 (Rp7.5 billion) ELON at Uniswap. However, apart from RichQuack, no reports of violations or attacks were reported by other projects or investors.

It should be noted that Hotbit had previously announced the closure of their centralized exchange operation (CEX) in June. The reasons behind this decision are deteriorating operational conditions and changes in the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem. Users have been warned to withdraw their assets before June 21.

Hotbit has previously suspended withdrawals and deposits on its platform since August 2022. However, law enforcement agencies have seized Hotbit's assets during a criminal investigation involving former employees. Hotbit also felt the impact of the fall and filing for bankruptcy of the FTX Derivatives Exchange in November which caused a significant flow of funds from CEX users and the worsening of the company's cash flow.

Since the closure of the CEX operation, there has been no significant information about Hotbit, which has become inactive. Currently, there has been no official response from Hotbit regarding allegations of rugby raised by RichQuack and allegations of dumping activity revealed in on-chain data.