Australian Bitcoin Exchange Igot “On the Verge of Collapse”

Its a sad reality that all cryptocurrency users are well aware of: since the collapse of MtGox, exchanges appear to be a weak point in the system, routinely targeted by hackers and sometimes failing to withstand the attacks. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports that, Igot, an Australian-founded bitcoin exchange “appears on the verge of collapse, with dozens of customers and clients claiming to be owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The founder of the exchange, Rick Day, admitted to ABC that Igot was struggling but tried to reassure that it will come through on its commitments. “I am well aware that customers are affected and customers are really unhappy with this but I would like to show each and every one that we have not lost their money. We have not run away with anything and we will return the money,” he told ABC.

The report cites numerous examples of clients that have not received their funds and even a “former adviser” that says that Igot has been shady since 2014 when he was asked to invest in it. Jesse Chenard, the CEO of MonetaGo, a blockchain solutions provider of currency conversion solutions for financial institutions, said: “I think at that time Igot was insolvent but because Rick claimed to have other assets and because everything was murky and in his name and what have you, he claimed that he was able to cover it and it was a small accounting thing. So as to whether the company was insolvent? I would say the balance sheet looked pretty crappy.”

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“What people thought that they had bought with their Australian dollars or Indian rupees or US dollars or whatever currency they were dealing in — they hadn’t been actually bought. It hadn’t been bought for them,” Chenard added.

According to its website, Igot has offices in Australia, Slovenia, India, Singapore and Hong Kong. Its last blog post is from July 2015 titled: “DDoS Attack Causing Delays on the igot Platform” and its last tweet is from August: “We are now processing withdrawals. We have a queue of users with pending transactions, so please bear with us while this process is ongoing.” Not too reassuring.