Reading 2 minutes Views 4 Published Updated
The exchange said in an announcement that its working conditions have deteriorated since a former member of its team came under investigation back in August 2022. According to the exchange, the investigation forced them to cease operations for several weeks.
Additionally, Hotbit has also cited various incidents in the cryptocurrency space as contributing factors to its demise. The exchange cited the collapse of the FTX exchange and the banking crises that triggered the USD Coin (USDC) depegging incident as reasons for the deteriorating cash flow. Hotbit said the incidents resulted in a continuous outflow of funds from centralized exchanges.
Beyond that, the Hotbit team also believes that centralized exchanges are becoming “increasingly unwieldy” and “unlikely to follow long-term trends.” The exchange said the only options are to either become more decentralized or accept regulation.
The exchange also blamed repeated cyberattacks and exploitation of “design flaws by attackers” as reasons for its downfall.
Related: ‘Big Short’ author Michael Lewis almost ready to publish book on SBF
When the announcement came, several members of the community reported that they were unable to withdraw their funds from the exchange.
Cryptocurrency exchange Hotbit has announced that it will stop all its operations from May 22. The exchange has asked all of its users to withdraw their funds by June 21, 04:00 UTC.
How do we withdraw when the withdrawal option has been disabled? Please enable withdrawal so we can withdraw our assets https://t.co/gXlGpR4hOV
— laith (@laith2762) May 22, 2023
Some have also warned members of the community about phishing links posing as the official Hotbit exchange on Google.
While Hotbit is taking over, other exchanges are still going ahead and launching campaigns to fix problems in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase recently published a campaign saying “upgrade the system.” On the other hand, OKX has gone even further and wants to completely “rewrite the system”.
