Polish crypto Exchange Coinroom has suddenly shut its services in April and allegedly disappeared with customers funds, local financial news platform Money.pl revealed.
Though the exact amount involved in the alleged fraudulent act is not known yet, customers with deposits ranging from PLN 300 (around $79) to PLN 60,000 (about $15,660) came out to testify against the exchange.
Founded in 2016, Coinroom was one of the most widely used digital asset exchange in Poland and offered fiat-based crypto trading to its clients.
On April 2, the exchange sent out an email to its customers stating that it was going to terminate all contracts and requested them to withdraw deposits within a day. Anyone failing to generate a withdrawal request within the stipulated time was forced to contact the exchange for their stored funds. Interestingly, Coinroom drafted all these complex rules in its user agreement and made every customer sign it when opening an account.
According to the local daily, many customers did not receive their deposits, while some received only a partial amount.
One customer detailed that even after receiving a withdrawal confirmation from the exchange for 2.005 BTC, he did not receive anything. Dozens of other victims also lined up to share their grievances on crypto forums.
The exchange also stopped responding to customer queries and shut its social media handles. The exchange even took down its website to completely disappear from the public domain.
Many are now suspecting that the exchange was launched to dupe customers.
Some of the victims also teamed up to file a lawsuit against the shady crypto exchange.
Troubled crypto exchanges
The slump in the crypto market over the last year has forced many exchanges to shut their services. Two crypto exchange in India - Coindelta and Coinome - went off the market this year citing a bear market and unclear regulatory needs.
Meanwhile, the woes for the financially crippled Cryptopia are deepening as its liquidators recently published their first audit report calculating a debt of at least $2.7 million to its creditors.
