Crypto Exchange Hotbit Halted Trading, Authorities Suspended Funds

• Hotbit halted a withdrawals, following the asset freeze by legal authorities.
• Authorities have charged a former employee for criminal activity.

The cryptocurrency exchange Hotbit has stated that the exchange suspended all trading, deposits, withdrawals, and funding on its platform. According to the exchange, law enforcement has subpoenaed several senior officials and frozen some of its assets while investigating a criminal case involving a former employee of the exchange.

Illegal Activity Around The Exchange

The crypto exchange suspension reason, that a former Hotbit management employee who left the company in April of this year was involved in a project last year, which violated criminal laws and was against Hotbit’s internal regulation without the exchange’s knowledge.

Following that, law enforcement has subpoenaed several Hotbit senior managers, who are now involved with the investigation since the end of July. Additionally, Hotbit’s  some part of funds has been frozen by the authorities, which has stopped Hotbit from operating normally.

The cryptocurrency exchange Hotbit stated that;

Hotbit is working hard to continue to cooperate and follow up on the progress of the investigation by law enforcement authorities, and will announce the results of the investigation as soon as they are available.

Users of the exchange are not able to access its services in several countries, including the United States, China, Singapore, and Japan. Although, Hotbit didn’t indicate which legal authority is investigating its management or the overall amount of the frozen funds. 

According to the cryptocurrency exchange Hotbit, neither the platform itself nor other members of Hotbit’s management were allegedly not involved in the illegal actions under investigation.

Furthermore, Hotbit exchange intends to continue its services when the assets are unfrozen, although it is unsure of when that will be. Hotbit, a less well-known crypto exchange than Binance and Coinbase, reported $350 million in trading volume the day before halting, as per CoinMarketCap.

The most recent cryptocurrency exchange to suspend withdrawals is Hotbit, before that, the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Zipmex stopped accepting withdrawals and requested a moratorium. And two prominent crypto lenders Voyager Digital and Celsius Network also declared bankruptcy.